SASAC orders state-owned firms to accelerate AI application across all manufacturing processes

The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) recently held a special meeting, emphasizing that central state-owned enterprises (SOEs) must focus on key areas and critical links, with particular attention to becoming "more advanced." The meeting made an integrated deployment across five dimensions: technology, industrial structure, production methods, manufacturing paradigms, and business models.

In terms of the manufacturing paradigm, the meeting explicitly required "guiding and promoting central SOEs to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence."

As important pillars of the national economy, central SOEs cover sectors including high-end equipment, energy and chemicals, rail transit, aerospace, and new materials.

Blueprint for Central SOEs' Manufacturing Upgrade

The five "more advanced" development pathways identified by SASAC precisely target the core bottlenecks currently facing the transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry:

• More advanced in technology: Systematically undertake a new batch of national major science and technology projects, implement a number of landmark major scientific tasks, promote the construction of new pilot-scale experimental platforms, and achieve a more high-end and independent technology roadmap.

• More advanced in industrial structure: Expand the increment of emerging industries, cultivate the variable of future industries, optimize the stock of traditional industries, and continuously move toward the mid-to-high end of the industrial and value chains.

• More advanced in production methods: Promote mutual reinforcement between pollution and carbon reduction and quality and efficiency improvement, and accelerate the formation of an industrial structure and production methods featuring high technological content, low resource consumption, and low environmental pollution.

• More advanced in manufacturing paradigm: Guide and promote central SOEs to accelerate the popularization and application of AI in all areas of manufacturing, and strengthen the intelligent upgrade of the entire process, including R&D, production, and management.

• More advanced in business models: Vigorously promote the deep integration of advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, innovatively develop service-oriented manufacturing, tap new growth points in business model integration, and enhance the overall level of the industrial and value chains.

Among these five advancement directions, a more advanced manufacturing paradigm has become the core driver and innovative highlight running through the entire strategy. The meeting clearly deployed the comprehensive acceleration of AI adoption across all areas of central SOEs' manufacturing, empowering R&D innovation, intelligent manufacturing, intelligent control, and intelligent operations and maintenance with AI. This aims to achieve intelligent upgrades across the entire manufacturing process, all elements, and all scenarios, fundamentally reshaping the production logic, management models, and development paradigms of traditional manufacturing.

Industry experts noted that unlike previous智能化 transformations focused on single pieces of equipment or single links, the AI manufacturing paradigm upgrade deployed by SASAC this time represents a systematic, full-chain, and deep-level change. It aims to leverage the vast industrial scenarios, complete industrial chains, and strong technological accumulation of central SOEs to create benchmarks for the intelligent transformation of the national manufacturing industry and lead the overall upgrade of the domestic manufacturing sector.

Activating New Momentum in the AI Manufacturing Industry

As the policy blueprint translates into practice, a number of noteworthy examples have already emerged on the front lines of central SOEs' manufacturing.

The "Embodied Intelligence Empowering Coal Machinery Equipment Intelligent Manufacturing" scenario created by Beijing Tianma Intelligent Control Technology Co., Ltd. (Tianma Intelligent Control), a subsidiary of China Coal Technology & Engineering Group, was selected as one of the first ten landmark open scenarios of central SOEs. This scenario covers the entire process of intelligent manufacturing of coal machinery equipment, including detailed logistics setup.

Notably, Tianma Intelligent Control's intelligent unmanned coal mining control equipment smart factory was previously recognized as one of the first national-level excellent smart factories. It possesses a mature and complete intelligent manufacturing system for unmanned coal mining equipment, providing solid technical support for the implementation of the embodied intelligence-empowered coal machinery equipment intelligent manufacturing scenario.

Wei Guanwei, Deputy General Manager of the Intelligent Manufacturing Division at Tianma Intelligent Control, previously stated in an interview with China Times that the factory's selection as one of the first batch of smart factory projects is an important achievement resulting from the company's thorough implementation of China Coal Technology & Engineering Group's "1245" overall development strategy and its deep push for digital transformation. In the future, Tianma Intelligent Control will deeply integrate cutting-edge technologies with intelligent manufacturing, accelerate the company's digital transformation and upgrading, continue to promote smart factory construction, and create new benchmarks in the intelligent manufacturing field.

Policy Empowerment

Currently, global AI technology innovation has entered an unprecedented period of activity, and the digital economy is booming.

Data shows that the application penetration rate of AI technology among China's manufacturing enterprises above a designated size has exceeded 30%, and 5G applications are being used in mines and ports.

At the policy level, in January of this year, eight departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "AI + Manufacturing" Special Action Implementation Opinions. The document proposes to promote the deep application of 3 to 5 general-purpose large models in manufacturing by 2027, launch 1,000 high-level industrial intelligent agents, create 100 high-quality industrial datasets, and promote 500 typical application scenarios. This programmatic document provides a clear roadmap for central SOEs' AI + manufacturing initiatives.

The industrial foundation supporting this goal is rapidly being consolidated. According to the Manufacturing Digital and Intelligent Transformation Capability Level (2026) released by the National Industrial Information Security Development Research Center, as of the first half of the year, China's level of integration of informatization and industrialization reached 67.1. The penetration rate of AI technology in key application scenarios reached 34.2%, an increase of 5.5 percentage points year-on-year, and 10.6% of manufacturing enterprises above a designated size are leveraging AI large models to empower business innovation.

Notably, the National Advanced Manufacturing Conference and the World Manufacturing Conference have been held successively in recent days.

Manufacturing is the foundation of the nation and the bedrock of a strong country, and advanced manufacturing is the backbone of the modern industrial system.

Li Jin, Chief Researcher at the China Enterprise Research Institute, pointed out in an interview with China Times that China's advanced manufacturing industry is continuously growing and strengthening, with improving innovation capabilities, competitiveness, and comprehensive strength.

"Intelligentization, greenization, and integration are the directions and means of development. Intelligentization relies on digital technology to improve quality and efficiency; greenization balances low-carbon sustainability and adapts to high-quality development requirements; integration promotes cross-border integration of digital and physical, manufacturing and service industries. Together, these three transform traditional industries and cultivate new industries."

In the next step, SASAC will strengthen organizational promotion to form a good momentum for the development of advanced manufacturing, cultivate leading enterprises, support qualified central SOEs in strengthening resource integration and market layout, and accelerate the creation of original technology sources and modern industrial chain leaders. It will also strengthen policy support, focusing on technological breakthroughs, intelligent transformation, and optimized layout by improving assessment incentives, financial support, and other measures. Furthermore, it will transform regulatory approaches, strengthen scientific, industrial, and strategic thinking in regulation, enhance communication and coordination with relevant departments, and create a favorable environment for central SOEs to strengthen and expand advanced manufacturing.

(Source: China Times)