China Market Insider The Five Fastest-Growing CNC Machine Tool Manufacturers in China

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China's machine tool industry benefits from government support for future industries. We provide an overview of the emerging players in the market.

China has launched a massive project to modernize its economy. It is concealed behind the somewhat convoluted party jargon of “new, high-quality productive forces” promoted by the Beijing headquarters. Behind this lies the attempt to find new drivers for domestic economic growth in the face of an aging and shrinking population and growing resistance to its export-oriented economy abroad.

For the country's machine tool manufacturers, this project currently feels like a state-sponsored doping program in competitive sports. Because where new future industries are being massively promoted, the demand for specialized machines is also growing—from drones and air taxis to robots and data centers, as well as biotech and digital healthcare. And not least, in areas where all existing industries in traditional manufacturing are simultaneously being automated, digitized, and enhanced with artificial intelligence (AI) (both of which are equally considered part of the "high-quality productive forces").

• Example E-Mobility: The commonly used integrated die-casting technology is currently driving the demand for large-format five-axis portal machining centers to produce all the modern components such as batteries and battery cases, motor and gearbox housings for electric cars and plug-in hybrids.
• Example Humanoid Robots: The boom of bipedal metal robots and overall "embodied artificial intelligence" brings higher demands for precision machining. Core components of "Mr. Roboto," such as precision gearboxes, ball screws, and guide rails, require ultra-precise grinding machines with accuracy demands in the micrometer range.

"According to estimates, the market for humanoid robots in China will reach a volume of 7.5 billion yuan [author's note: around 944 million dollars] in 2029, driving the demand for corresponding machining equipment to over 1 billion yuan [author's note: 127 million dollars]," writes the Chinese specialist portal Gelonghui. And this is just the beginning.

This "doping program" is already showing initial effects: In the first half of this year, the operating revenue and total profits of the leading companies in the Chinese machinery industry grew by 7.8% and 9.4%, respectively. This is shown by statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in Beijing. It was already much better than the average growth of the Chinese industry.

And in certain areas, such as cutting machine tools, growth even reached 13.5% over the same period. From 2019 to 2024, the total value of the Chinese machine tool industry rose from over 631 billion yuan in 2019 to more than 712 billion yuan and is expected to surpass the 800 billion yuan mark (around 102 billion dollars) by 2029, according to calculations by Gelonghui.

Looking at CNC machines, only about 20 percent of high-quality equipment is currently manufactured in China itself. The rest is imported, which is (still) a major blessing for German machine builders. However, the Chinese government increasingly feels under attack from boycotts and trade barriers by the USA and the European Union and has now announced plans to reverse this ratio of foreign to domestic technology.

State media predict that "the domestic substitution rate" for high-end CNC machine tools will rise to 60 percent by 2030. This would mean that China will order only a minority of its high-performance CNC machines from Germany or elsewhere abroad just five years later.

Reason enough to take a closer look at the five biggest rising stars among China's CNC machine manufacturers.

1. Huazhong CNC

• Headquarters: Wuhan, Hubei Province

Wuhan Huazhong Numerical Control Co., Ltd. (abbreviation: Huazhong CNC) was founded in 1994 and later became the first CNC machine manufacturer in China to be listed on the stock exchange. CNC machine tools and controls, industrial robots, and all kinds of equipment for intelligent manufacturing are part of its core business.

To stick with the example above: If China's manufacturing industry has just been put on steroids, many of them come from the "labs" of Huazhong CNC.

How much the company invests in its own research and development is repeatedly evident from individual technological breakthroughs, which often make headlines in China. Huazhong CNC is particularly proud of its intelligent CNC system of the HNC-10 series, developed in collaboration with Huazhong University of Science and Technology.

This is a CNC system with autonomous learning capabilities, whose hardware is equipped with AI chips and large AI models. The system already possesses decision-making abilities equivalent to those of an engineer with two to three years of experience, said Chen Jihong, the chairman of Huazhong CNC, in a recent interview. Through data training, HNC-10 can now continuously evolve.

Huazhong CNC has already sold thousands of self-developed five-axis simultaneous machining systems.

2. Kede CNC

• Headquarters: Dalian, Shenyang Province

Kede CNC is a subsidiary of Dalian Gona Technology Group Co., Ltd. It is also one of the leading producers of five-axis systems in China. The company provides its customers in the manufacturing industry with integrated solutions including machine tools, controls, motors, and feedback devices.

Kede CNC is currently working on connecting various production facilities in a 250,000-square-meter industrial park for intelligent manufacturing equipment using big data, the Internet of Things, AI, and intelligent energy management.

Well-known products include its five-axis turning and milling combinations from the KMC series, the high-speed portal machining from the GMA/B series, and the K-Tool-G series of five-axis tool grinding machines.

3. Huadong CNC

• Headquarters: Weihai, Shandong Province

Founded in 2002, Weihai Huadong Automation Co., Ltd. in the picturesque coastal city of Weihai describes itself as a "high-tech company specializing in the research and development, design, manufacturing, sales, and service of grinding and milling machines," having already achieved "international top-level standards" here and there.

Its portal milling products are based on the technology of the German manufacturer Schiess. The company regularly receives national awards for its innovations, such as for its portal guideway grinding machines under the "National Major Project 04 for Science and Technology."

4. Haitian Precision

• Headquarters: Ningbo, Zhejiang Province

Ningbo Haitian Precision Machinery Co., Ltd. is another publicly listed company specializing in the production of CNC machine tools. It operates three manufacturing sites in Ningbo, one of which is dedicated to high-end CNC machine tools, as well as another in Dalian. Altogether, these modern processing and assembly plants with constant temperature control cover an area of 570,000 square meters. The company employs 2,300 people.

The main products include

• CNC portal machining centers,
• CNC horizontal machining centers,
• CNC vertical machining centers and
• CNC lathes.

The company's products are predominantly positioned in the high-end segment.

Haitian Precision directly competes with established machine tool manufacturers in Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan. Its customers come from the aerospace, railway (high-speed trains), automotive industries, as well as the tool and mold-making sectors.

5. Qinchuan Machine Tool

• Headquarters: Baoji, Shaanxi Province

When a gear grinding machine achieves an accuracy of 0.00004 inches, like the latest model from Qinchuan Machine Tool & Tool Co., Ltd., it is international top-level quality. In addition to high-precision CNC machine tools, the company also manufactures industrial robot gearboxes. It has been recognized as one of the "Top 100 Enterprises in the Chinese Machinery Industry."

The product portfolio includes CNC lathes and machining centers, cylindrical grinding machines, gear processing machines, thread grinding machines, precision measuring instruments, as well as components such as rolling guides, various automotive parts, precision gears, and precision cast parts. Intelligent manufacturing solutions and services, such as high-end CNC systems, automated production lines, digital workshops, and the "Qinchuan Cloud" platform, are also part of the offering.

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