Experts: AI driving transformation of manufacturing in China

AI-driven integration with advanced manufacturing is becoming the decisive force in the transformation of China's manufacturing powerhouse, as intelligent technologies increasingly reshape factory floors and industrial systems nationwide, industry officials and experts have said.

Recent breakthroughs in artificial intelligence have made the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and intelligent technologies not only inevitable but essential, according to Zeng Jianping, deputy secretary-general of the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee.

"This will be the most critical factor in the transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of China's manufacturing sector over the next decade," Zeng said at a media briefing hosted by the All-China Journalists Association on Wednesday.

Latest data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) showed that AI has already been applied in more than 70 percent of business scenarios at China's "leading-tier" smart factories, giving rise to over 6,000 AI models tailored to vertical industrial applications. These advances have also driven the large-scale deployment of more than 1,700 key intelligent manufacturing equipment systems and industrial software solutions.

"A new generation of industrial intelligent agents equipped with sensing, decision-making and execution capabilities is accelerating the shift of intelligent manufacturing from automation toward autonomy," Xie Cun, head of the information and communications development department at the MIIT, said at Wednesday's briefing.

Empowered by AI technologies, manufacturing plants across China are rapidly enhancing their intelligence and customization capabilities.

At Haier's leading-tier smart factory in Qingdao, Shandong province, an AI-driven intelligent scheduling system now enables the factory to generate optimal production and adjustment plans, effectively resolving the long-standing tension between customized demand and large-scale manufacturing efficiency.

According to company data, the system has boosted scheduling efficiency by 50 percent, improved efficiency on best-selling product lines by 5.8 percent, and cut the work-in-progress inventory by 62.5 percent.

As of last year, Haier had built 13 global "lighthouse factories", 18 national-level "green factories" and one leading-tier smart factory.

This reflects a broader shift in China's manufacturing sector toward a new stage characterized by tiered cultivation and systematic upgrading of intelligent capabilities. Earlier this month, eight government departments jointly issued an action plan on AI + manufacturing, which sets the goal of achieving the secure and reliable supply of key AI technologies by 2027, while ensuring China remains a world leader in industrial scale and empowerment capacity.

The plan also calls for the deep application of three to five general-purpose large AI models in manufacturing, the development of industry-specific models with broad coverage, the creation of 100 high-quality industrial data sets, and the promotion of 500 typical application scenarios by 2027.