Shift in Industrial Control Systems Reflects Growing Concerns Over Cybersecurity
China's Xiluodu Dam, one of the largest hydropower stations globally, has made a significant move by fully transitioning away from Western-made industrial control chips. This shift is driven by national security and supply chain resilience concerns, according to a leading Chinese industrial chip supplier.
Loongson Technology, a key player in this transition, announced that the dam, located on the Jinsha River at the junction of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, had replaced long-standing foreign "programmable logic controllers" (PLCs) from Siemens and Schneider Electric with a domestically developed system powered by Loongson 3C6000 processors. This change highlights growing alarm over vulnerabilities in industrial control systems, especially after historic cyberattacks like the Stuxnet virus, which allegedly targeted Siemens PLCs to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program over a decade ago.
The Xiluodu Dam is the third-largest hydropower station in China, following the Three Gorges Dam and Baihetan Dam, and ranks fourth globally. It features nine units of 770 megawatt turbine generators, contributing to a total installed capacity of 13.86 gigawatts.
In August 2024, Loongson Technology announced the official deployment of the NJ400 series PLC, developed by Atekon Technology and powered by a Loongson processor, at the Xiluodu Dam. The NJ400 range successfully replaced the original Schneider Premium series and Siemens S7-300 series PLCs used in the hydropower station, marking a major step toward the complete localization of core control equipment for the tubular valve control system.
This development lays a solid technological foundation for the long-term safe and stable operation of this world-class hydropower station using independent and controllable technology. Loongson Technology, originally part of the Institute of Computing Technology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was spun off in 2011 to commercialize its innovations. Since then, it has become a key player in China's efforts to reduce reliance on Western technology.
Its flagship product, the Loongson series of central processing units (CPUs), has been in development since 2001. In March 2023, the US Commerce Department placed Loongson and other Chinese firms on a trade blacklist, alleging their use of US technology to support military modernization. This action restricts their access to American tech, goods, and services, as US exporters require special licenses to supply them.
Last month, Loongson launched its next-generation general-purpose processor, the 3C6000. Built entirely on Loongson's self-developed instruction set architecture, LoongArch, this processor removes the need for reliance on foreign technology licenses or overseas supply chains.
PLCs are critical components in industrial control systems across various sectors of the Chinese economy, including power generation, petrochemicals, chemicals, rail transit, shipping, and metallurgy. Their information security functions hold significant importance. Medium to large PLC products have high technical thresholds and market barriers, with the Chinese market historically dominated by international brands such as Siemens and Schneider.
According to market trackers MIR Databank, Siemens controlled more than half the medium and large PLC market in China in 2023, compared with under 6% for domestic manufacturers. From 2002 to 2021, industrial control systems, particularly PLCs, were frequent targets of cyberattacks worldwide. The 2010 Stuxnet worm, which targeted Siemens PLCs, caused extensive damage to Iran's nuclear facilities and triggered significant geopolitical and security repercussions.
Stuxnet primarily operated through remote control, altering the rotational speed of centrifuges to damage them and affect the quality of enriched uranium produced. According to Loongson's website, the NJ400 series PLCs equipped with 3C6000 processors have also been deployed at the Three Gorges and Xiangjiaba dams, replacing foreign counterparts.
Atekon reports widespread implementation of domestic replacements in several crucial industrial control systems across the country, including hydropower, high-speed rail, coal mining, thermal power, and petrochemical industries. In the thermal power industry, Atekon has become a Class A supplier for Japan's Toshiba Power through Toshiba's QS Group supervision audit, supplying PLCs for its thermal power automation projects in the Southeast Asian market.