In the production workshop of Dingtai Hi-Tech in Dongguan, rows of equipment operate silently through glass. Drill needles thinner than a human hair are produced in batches and will punch holes in circuit boards that are invisible to the naked eye. These tiny holes will illuminate the larger world in mobile phones, computers, and servers around the world.
"The demand in the AI industry is so strong now that the company has to increase production capacity every two or three days, and the supply is still far beyond demand." Chairman Wang Xin told reporters.
From the accuracy and speed of a "drill needle", we can see Guangdong's accelerated transition on the track of advanced manufacturing.
Implementing the deployment of the party and the country, 15 industries rank first in the country in scale, 10 trillion-level industrial clusters, 8 national advanced manufacturing clusters, and 9 manufacturing companies have entered the Fortune Global 500. These data have become a vivid footnote that Guangdong adheres to the real economy as the basis, the manufacturing industry as the leader, and continues to expand and strengthen the advanced manufacturing industry.
On October 9, Guangdong Province held a provincial advanced manufacturing conference to re-research, redeploy, and implement the development of advanced manufacturing in Guangdong and the construction of a strong manufacturing province at present and in the future, and start again with a sonorous step.
Strengthen the foundation with innovation and forge independent and controllable hard power
Practice has repeatedly told us that key core technologies cannot be obtained, bought, or begged. Guangdong is well aware that competition in advanced manufacturing is ultimately a competition of innovation capabilities and a contest of industrial chain resilience.
In Shenzhen, the integrated circuit industry has experienced an average annual compound growth rate of 10.8% during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Major achievements such as Shengteng chips and new Kailai equipment have emerged one after another. "Building cores for China and building cores for AI" illuminates reality from the vision.
In Guangzhou, Yuexin Semiconductor, as the main enterprise of the integrated circuit chain cultivated by Guangdong, has moved from "survival" to "creating characteristics" in 12-inch wafer manufacturing, and has become an important force participating in the global division of labor in the field of silicon photonics.
In Dongguan, Dingtai Hi-Tech has pushed the "industrial dental" drill bits to the top level in the world - the core equipment is fully independently developed, with a monthly production capacity of over 100 million pieces, and a global market share of nearly 30%, ranking first in the world. This company, which started from an assembly line, is now at the top of the global industrial chain.
"6G still has many key technical areas that require original breakthroughs," said Fang Rong, chairman of ZTE. ZTE has formed a considerable number of patent layouts in the field of 6G core technology. In the deep water area of original innovation, Guangdong enterprises are forming more and more "Chinese solutions".
In Huizhou Zhongkai High-tech Zone, Jiangfeng electronic targets have been fully localized. Ruijie New Materials has the world's exclusive mastery of the mass production technology of three types of diffusion plates, with a global market share of 20%. Meirui Electronics has broken through the "stuck neck" process with nearly 60 patents and become a C919 supply chain enterprise. A group of small and medium-sized enterprises have built a solid foundation for independent control of the industrial chain with the power of "specialization, specialization and innovation".
The Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance allocates more than 20 billion yuan every year to support high-quality construction of a strong manufacturing province. The Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission has opened up the "three ends" of R&D, production, and application, and promoted the "four chains" integration of the innovation chain, industrial chain, capital chain, and talent chain, so that more key core technologies can move from "following" to "running parallel" and "leading."
The "Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou" innovation cluster has topped the global innovation index for two consecutive years. By planning to build a Bay Area Innovation Belt that connects the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong and Guangzhou-Zhuhai-Macao science and technology innovation corridors, and brings together major scientific and technological infrastructure, high-level laboratories, and first-class scientific research institutes, Guangdong is upgrading "geographical agglomeration" to "ecological synergy and innovation."
Reshape the new paradigm of production methods with the guidance of "three modernizations"
The modern transformation of the manufacturing industry is a profound change from production methods to industrial forms. Guangdong adheres to the direction of intelligence, greenness and integration, focuses on the new generation of intelligent manufacturing, and promotes the reconstruction of the entire manufacturing process.
Intelligence is reshaping the production function of Guangdong manufacturing. More than 10,000 regulated industrial enterprises in Dongguan have completed digital transformation. AI visual quality inspection can scan 30 precision solder joints per second, with an accuracy of over 99.5%. Workers have transformed into "AI trainers" and used the experience of "old masters" to polish algorithm models, making AI more accurate the more it is used. The scale of Shenzhen's artificial intelligence core industry exceeds 220 billion yuan. The output of industrial robots and service robots accounts for 25.2% and 42.9% of the country respectively. "Training vouchers, corpus vouchers, and model vouchers" accurately empower small and medium-sized enterprises.
Jialichuang 3D printing super factory has deployed more than 1,500 industrial-grade equipment, with an average monthly production of more than 1 million parts, delivery within 5 hours at the fastest, and a stable order delivery rate of over 95%. From single-piece prototyping to thousand-piece trial production, from R&D auxiliary tools to large-scale industrial flexible manufacturing, the time from a drawing to a finished product is compressed to hours.
Greening is becoming the new background of manufacturing in Guangdong. Guangxin Holdings took the lead in releasing the carbon peak action plan, built four national-level green factories, and was selected into the Fortune China ESG Impact List for two consecutive years. Dongguan Muse Smart Factory deploys photovoltaic power generation throughout the entire area, and every kilowatt hour of electricity has a "carbon ledger." From a photovoltaic panel to a zero-carbon park, Guangdong Manufacturing is transforming green and low-carbon from "compliance costs" into "competitive advantages."
Guangdong Province is accelerating the construction of national and provincial zero-carbon parks, promoting the construction of green factories and green supply chains, and turning green and low-carbon into the core advantage of Guangdong manufacturing to participate in global competition. It accounts for approximately 7.2% of the country's energy consumption and supports 10.4% of the country's total economic output. A total of 660 national green factories, 12 green industrial parks, and 104 green supply chain management enterprises have been established. Greening is an inevitable choice to break through resource and environmental constraints and achieve the organic unity of economic, social and ecological benefits.
Integration is breaking down industry boundaries and expanding value space. Desay SV has upgraded from an automotive electronics hardware supplier to a smart travel solution provider. The cabin-driving integrated solution combines the cockpit and smart driving into one. What is delivered is no longer a single component, but an integrated solution that integrates hardware and software.
The 4.4-square-kilometer Fuwei community in Shenzhen is home to more than 4,300 logistics companies and handles more than one million cross-border parcels every day. It can reach major Asian cities in as fast as 2 days and the world in 3 days. The packages sent from here are no longer OEM toys and cheap clothing, but high-end clothing and smart hardware from Shenzhen's local original brands. The logistics model has been upgraded from "simple transportation" to "supply chain empowerment", allowing the service industry and manufacturing to be deeply integrated.
Build a modern industrial system with a systematic layout
There is no sunset industry, only sunset workshops. Advanced manufacturing has roots in thousands of industries, requiring systematic thinking and insisting on adapting measures to local conditions. Guangdong coordinates the promotion of the upgrading of traditional industries, the growth of emerging industries, and the cultivation of future industries. It provides all-round support for the development of advanced manufacturing with the orderly replacement and overall improvement of the three types of industries.
Traditional industries are Guangdong’s valuable assets. Traditional industries such as electronics, machinery, chemicals, light industry, building materials, textiles, and ships are moving towards advanced manufacturing through optimization and upgrading. The digital transformation rate of Foshan's industrial enterprises above designated size exceeds 80%, and 80 digital and intelligent demonstration factories have been built, giving new life to "Every home is made in Foshan".
Emerging industries are the new force of advanced manufacturing. The total scale of Guangzhou's six major tracks of "land, sea, air" and "core display medicine" exceeds one trillion. The total amount of Guangzhou Shipbuilding's international orders exceeds 100 billion, and the schedule is until 2030. It is a solid step in building the "World Display Capital". Shenzhen's new energy vehicle production increased by 145.2% and continued to maintain a good momentum. Dongguan will produce nearly 600,000 servers in 2025, and 1 out of every 10 servers in the country will be produced in Dongguan. The computing power industry island plans to invest 9,000 acres of land and plans to invest 100 billion yuan in the next five years, striving to achieve a scale of 500 billion yuan in AI server-related industrial clusters in 2030.
Future industries are the key to seizing the commanding heights. In the first year of the “15th Five-Year Plan”, Guangdong is proactively deploying key areas such as sixth-generation mobile communications, embodied intelligence, cell and gene therapy, brain science and brain-computer interfaces, hydrogen energy, advanced nuclear energy, deep-sea exploration, and quantum technology. ZTE fully supports the collaborative pilot verification in eastern Guangdong and promotes the integration of new scenarios such as low-altitude economy, satellite Internet, and robots into 6G technology research and development. Guangzhou focuses on embodied intelligence, brain-computer interface, and quantum technology to create a national future industry pilot zone.
Guangdong's manufacturing industry is not only reshaping itself with AI, but also a manufacturing industry that produces AI. From the mass production of a humanoid robot to the rise of a computing power industry island; from the precision of a drill needle to the establishment of a trillion-level industrial cluster - every step forward in Guangdong's advanced manufacturing industry is building a stronger material and technological foundation for China's modernization.
"Ten thousand years is too long, seize the day." Standing at a new starting point in the first year of the "15th Five-Year Plan", Guangdong continues to deepen its advanced manufacturing industry, consolidate reasonable growth in quantity through effective improvement in quality, and ensure that the industrial economy is stable while making progress and improving quality with the toughness of the industry, the stability of the chain, and the strength of the main body.
