For the global organization PROFIBUS & PROFINET International (PI), the economic region of Asia has become increasingly important over the past several years. Above all the development of the market in China has grown in importance for our PROFIBUS and PROFINET technologies. PROFIBUS is successful as never before in China. There are a large number of applications in various fields. With regard to PROFINET, product developments are currently in progress at several Chinese companies. And that makes the establishment of expertise on site all the more important. This enables support to take place in the native language, creating optimum conditions for increasing utilization.
For these reasons, three additional competence centers were recently established in China: one at ABB for PROFIBUS and PROFINET, one at Siemens for PROFINET and a third at PROCENTEC for PROFIBUS.
For Ruben-Jun Zhang of ABB, Member of the Executive Board at PI China, the 
establishment of the centers is a milestone: “This is ABB’s very first PICC worldwide while our competitors like Siemens already had multiple PICCs, demonstrating ABB’s commitment to support PROFIBUS/PROFINET technology and customer needs was very important. This will not only enhance ABB’s technical capabilities by accessing PI global experts and support, it will also improve ABB’s market image and customer trust in ABB’s PROFIBUS/PROFINET-based products.”
Xu Bin of Siemens, Director of Marketing at PI China also sees the step as extremely important: “We are very happy to have passed the audit, and it is a milestone for Siemens China on PROFINET. It shows our competence on PROFINET technology, and we are confident that we can provide excellent support and consultancy to Chinese customers, helping them use PROFINET technology. We also very much expect to communicate with other PICCs all over the world, exchanging information and sharing the experience. We hope that with our knowledge and efforts, PROFINET can be used increasingly by Chinese customers.”
Wang Peng of PROCENTEC adds: “We are very happy to join the big family of the PI organization and to become a PI Competence 
Center in China. In the future we will continue to promote and spread both the PROFIBUS and the PROFINET technology.”
PI now has 5 accredited competence centers in China. These cover the entire range of PI technologies – from PROFIBUS to PROFINET, with PROFIsafe, for drive technology with PROFIdrive in production and process automation applications. In addition, PI also operates an accredited PI test laboratory and corresponding PI training centers are currently being established.