On January 16, 2026, KPMG held the second annual Smart Manufacturing Technology 50 list and report release conference during the China Smart Manufacturing Entrepreneur Ecosystem Summit, decoding the evolution path of China’s smart manufacturing industry. The listed companies showcased the innovative power of China’s smart manufacturing, outlining a high-quality development path led by independent innovation and supported by industrial collaboration. So, how can China’s smart manufacturing, driven by innovation, build core competitiveness for the future? Smart manufacturing, through the deep integration of next-generation information technologies such as the Industrial Internet, big data, artificial intelligence, and robotics with advanced manufacturing technologies, leads and drives the intelligent, high-end, and green transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry, empowering enterprises to develop new-quality productivity.
Jiang Liqin, Head of Client and Business Development at KPMG China, stated that cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence are fostering numerous industrial breakthroughs. This new type of productivity is not only reflected in a significant increase in production efficiency, but also in its ability to achieve intelligent, personalized, and flexible production processes, thereby breaking through the limitations of traditional manufacturing and providing solid support for building a modern industrial system.
The “Smart Manufacturing Technology 50” selection will be launched in May 2025, open to companies in the field of smart manufacturing technology nationwide, covering four major tracks: Industrial Internet of Things, Smart Manufacturing, Smart Robots, and Specialized and Innovative “Little Giant” Enterprises. Through a rigorous evaluation system and multiple rounds of expert review, the most promising and innovative companies will be selected.
Data shows that over 70% of the listed companies are in the intelligent manufacturing and intelligent robotics sector, with nearly half being growth-stage companies established for 6-10 years, and over 80% having technical personnel accounting for more than 40% of the workforce. Geographically, the distribution shows a pattern of “eastern leadership and the rise of central and western regions.” KPMG China’s Industrial Manufacturing and Automotive Industry Leader, Xu Kanling, stated that the manufacturing industry is currently evolving towards a “new industry” characterized by high efficiency, intelligence, and sustainable development. For example, the automotive manufacturing industry is witnessing a deep integration of electrification and intelligence, driving the transformation of automobiles from simple transportation tools to intelligent terminals. With continuous technological breakthroughs, industrial manufacturing will usher in a golden age of greater intelligence, personalization, and greening. The report argues that the draft of the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly positions manufacturing as the “backbone” and “foundation” of the entire national economic system, endowing it with national security attributes. This signifies a comprehensive shift in China’s manufacturing development strategy from “efficiency first” to “equal emphasis on security, controllability, and efficiency.” Simultaneously, industrial big data models have become the core engine of intelligent transformation, and the market size for industrial big data model applications in China is projected to continue expanding at a compound annual growth rate of 23%. The report proposes six major trends in intelligent manufacturing development towards 2030, including: industrial big data models driving manufacturing from technological breakthroughs to industrial restructuring; the increasingly clear outline of a “human-machine symbiotic” intelligent manufacturing ecosystem; the industrial metaverse promoting the globalization of virtual manufacturing; green development becoming both a hard constraint and a new growth engine; supply chain security and domestic substitution driving industrial upgrading; and a tiered cultivation mechanism promoting the large-scale and standardized implementation of intelligent factories. From the perspective of “human-machine symbiosis,” human-machine collaboration has entered a new stage of “cognitive intelligence.” China’s industrial robot sales remain the world’s largest, with collaborative robot shipments exceeding 40,000 units. Robots are expanding from traditional material handling to unstructured environments such as aerial, underwater, and underground spaces. Pure vision positioning systems have successfully replaced manual labor in high-risk inspection tasks such as underground utility tunnels, achieving a dual improvement in safety and efficiency. KPMG China Strategy and Transaction Consulting Partner Kang Qiming stated that truly competitive companies are no longer simply manufacturers of robots, but rather system solution providers that can streamline the perception-decision-execution-feedback pathway and build industry knowledge bases. Looking ahead to 2030, the competitive high ground in China’s intelligent manufacturing will be concentrated on “cognitive intelligence” in human-machine collaboration. Whoever can first achieve autonomous learning and contextual understanding in robots in open environments will define the industry standards for the next decade.
