China home to over 7,000 advanced smart factories

This photo taken on July 4, 2025 shows the laptop production line of the carbon-neutral smart manufacturing factory of Lenovo in north China's Tianjin. (Xinhua/Zhao Zishuo)

NANJING, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- China has built more than 7,000 advanced smart factories and become the world's largest intelligent manufacturing application base, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) announced on Thursday.

Xin Guobin, vice minister of industry and information technology, revealed the data in his speech at the 2025 World Intelligent Manufacturing Conference being held from Thursday to Saturday in Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province.

According to Xin, through sector-specific measures and a gradient cultivation approach, China has also established over 500 excellence-level smart factories -- and 15 enterprises have been selected for the cultivation list of pioneer-level smart factories.

Xin said China has developed a global supply capacity for systematic solutions. The total industrial scale of China's intelligent manufacturing equipment, industrial software and systematic solutions has exceeded 4.5 trillion yuan (approximately 635.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Suppliers of intelligent manufacturing systematic solutions in sectors such as complete vehicles, power batteries and petrochemicals are accelerating their global expansion -- with service networks covering major manufacturing regions worldwide.

In 2024, China conducted a gradient (progressive) cultivation campaign for the country's smart factories, following a circular jointly issued by the MIIT and five other government authorities. The government has classified smart factories into four tiers based on technological maturity and integration depth, namely basic-level, advanced-level, excellence-level and pioneer-level.