After years of steadfast reform and innovation, China’s equipment manufacturing industry has indeed made remarkable progress. Domestic equipment manufacturing brands have been both the driving force behind this endeavor and its key beneficiaries. Despite these impressive achievements, it remains an undeniable fact that the foundation of traditional manufacturing is still relatively weak, and there is still a significant gap in product quality—particularly in terms of stability, reliability, and safety—compared to high-quality international products.

　　In recent years, profound transformations have taken place in both the industrial sector and the information technology sector. Currently, “Made in China 2025” has entered a new stage of comprehensive implementation, and the astonishing pace of development in emerging technologies has greatly accelerated the integration of manufacturing and information technologies such as the internet.

　　Whether it’s the awe-inspiring impact of cutting-edge technologies such as the internet, artificial intelligence, and industrial cloud, or the “unusual” moves of business giants—could all these be signs of the eve of a great transformation? As a storm is about to break, the manufacturing sector is quietly undergoing a transformative upgrade, and the breadth and depth of its impact are no less powerful than the force of nuclear fusion itself.

　　Following the global financial crisis of 2008, major manufacturing powers around the world have successively introduced strategic guidelines to propel manufacturing into a new stage of intelligentization. As the integration of “two integrations”—the convergence of information technology and industrialization—continues to deepen, and as Industry 4.0 and “Made in China 2025” are increasingly refined in terms of funding, standards, and platforms, smart manufacturing has emerged as the ideal choice for many brands looking to expand their product lines.

　　In “Made in China 2025,” intelligent manufacturing is the main battleground of the “Intelligent Manufacturing Engineering”; transformation of production models is the main battleground of the “Action Plan for Servitization of Manufacturing”; and intelligent equipment is the main battleground of the “High-end Equipment Innovation Engineering.”

　　Smart equipment, as the name suggests, represents the integrated and deep fusion of advanced manufacturing technologies, information technologies, and intelligent technologies. In the field of electronic smart manufacturing, we have witnessed the sweeping market success of mobile phone brands Huawei and Xiaomi, which have shone brightly on the global electronics stage and truly enabled domestic Chinese mobile phone brands to achieve a qualitative leap in the international market.

　　While some brands are eager to tap into the lucrative equipment manufacturing sector, a group of leading manufacturing enterprises is gradually entering the smart equipment industry, aiming to secure a strong foothold in this new, promising market. Looking at the broader market, the smart equipment sector encompasses several of today’s most exciting emerging industries—such as robotics, 3D printing, energy-efficient and new-energy vehicles, drones, AR, and the Internet of Things—all of which have become highly sought-after investment themes on the secondary market.

　　Intelligent manufacturing equipment features sensing, analysis, reasoning, decision-making, and control capabilities. It represents the integrated and deep fusion of advanced manufacturing technologies, information technologies, and intelligent technologies. The development of intelligent specialized equipment has enabled automation, intelligence, precision, and greenness in production processes, thereby helping enterprises to perfect the ecological chain of smart factories.

　　Achieving the vision of “Made in China 2025” certainly hinges on the deep integration of industrial software and internet technologies; yet it also requires the support of intelligent physical devices. In the future, the manufacturing sector’s substantial and sustained demand for smart equipment will inevitably create new gaps.

　　In fact, after the hype surrounding key themes in 2015 gave way to the introduction of more detailed policies by the end of 2016, smart equipment is now at an excellent investment opportunity, with both production volumes and profitability improving. In the first quarter of 2017, the smart equipment industry as a whole saw a significant improvement in profitability, surpassing market expectations.

　　The wave of the smart equipment industry has arrived, and there is enormous room for upgrading traditional manufacturing. In the future, by leveraging advancements in critical basic components, devices, and intelligent specialized equipment—particularly in the fields of precision and smart instruments and testing equipment—and by rigorously implementing precision, green, automated, and intelligent practices throughout the production process to meet the needs of industries such as petrochemicals, biopharmaceuticals, and environmental monitoring, enterprises will find that driving overall technological advancement in the industrial sector will become one of the fastest and most reliable paths to profitability.