Participants attend the closing ceremony of the first theme forum of the Shanghai World Expo in Ningbo, a coastal city of east China's Zhejiang Province, May 16, 2010. The two-day forum focusing on information and communication technologies (ICT) and urban development attracted over 600 participants including renowned scholars and entrepreneurs. [Xinhua]

Liu said there were obstacles to overcome before IOT related ideas could be translated into specific products or applications for the mass market.

A process of commercialization has yet to start.

Standardization is also essential. China Mobile chairman Wang Jianzhou saw the absence of technological standardization as major obstacle for IOT promotion as the sector is still in its infancy and remains fragmented.

Almost any commercially successful technology needs standards to achieve mass production, such as the Internet's TCP/IP protocol or mobile phones' IMT-2000.

Another challenge to the healthy development of the IOT sector in China is a lack of national planning. "There are risks of overcapacity and redundancy, as coordination between local governments are lacking," said Wu Hequan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, at the forum.

There should be a nationwide overall plan in research and development of IOT technologies to raise efficiency and avoid wasting talent, said Wu adding that enthusiasm for the new technology shouldn't be over blown.

Echoing Wu, Jiang Mianheng, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said "people should keep cool-headed in making investment in IOT" in his keynote speech at the forum.

Both of them said the current interest in IOT was reminiscent the dot-com bubble, which came about in the mid-1990s -- only to burst five years later.

"IOT represents a major trend in the technological revolution, but we should work to stop a bubble occurring," said Wu.

(Xinhua News Agency May 17, 2010)