Hundred Rivals Forge Ahead on the Jialing River

From May 28 to 31, the 26th Lijia International Intelligent Equipment Exhibition opened at Chongqing International Expo Center. As a UFI-certified benchmark exhibition for intelligent manufacturing in western China, this edition covers 91,000 square meters, bringing together 1,300 enterprises from home and abroad to showcase 1,100 sets of high-end intelligent equipment. International giants such as Yamazaki Mazak, FANUC, and NVIDIA, as well as leading domestic enterprises including China General Technology Group, Huazhong CNC, Siasun Robot, and CATO, all participated. Focusing on the high-end five-axis CNC equipment sector, they highlighted the independent innovation strength of domestic “machine tools as the mother of industry”. Chinese and foreign intelligent manufacturing technologies competed on the same stage, presenting cutting-edge achievements in intelligent manufacturing in an all-round way and reflecting the strong momentum of transformation and upgrading of the manufacturing industry in western China. Combined with this exhibition, this paper deeply analyzes the layout of emerging industries in the southwest and the development status of the high-end machine tool manufacturing industry.

At present, the southwest region has formed an emerging industrial pattern led by the dual cores of Chengdu and Chongqing with complementary division of labor. It has built three complete industrial chains: aerospace, new energy vehicles, and humanoid robots, making it a national growth pole for core emerging industries. It has formed a three-pillar, dislocation development pattern with the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta, with prominent localization and large-scale advantages. Among them, the aerospace industry has a rare domestic full-closed industrial cluster of “R&D, manufacturing, launch, and application”. Based on the core layout of Chengdu, Mianyang, and Liangshan, Chongqing supports the development of aerospace information and low-altitude economy, with precise regional division of labor, supporting collaboration, and solid industrial independent controllability. The region gathers leading enterprises such as AVIC Chengdu Aircraft, China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation Seventh Academy, iSpace, and Sichuan Jiuzhou, covering core links including complete aircraft, aerospace equipment, aero-engine, and aerospace information, building a complete industrial ecosystem.

New energy vehicles are the largest and most mature emerging industry in the southwest region, accounting for more than 20% of the national output and ranking as the third national industrial pole. It has formed a collaborative development model of “Chongqing produces complete vehicles, Sichuan supplies batteries”. Chongqing focuses on complete vehicle manufacturing and intelligent connectivity, gathering mainstream automakers such as Changan Automobile and Seres, as well as a complete supporting system. Sichuan deeply cultivates the power battery track, building a 100-billion-level industrial cluster based on CATL Sichuan. Yibin’s power battery capacity ranks among the top in China, and it has made forward-looking layout in the cutting-edge field of solid-state batteries. As a key future industry, the Chengdu-Chongqing humanoid robot industry entered a critical period of mass production and commercialization in 2026. Relying on the region’s complete manufacturing supply chain, it has built a differentiated development system of “R&D in Chengdu, manufacturing in Chongqing, empowerment in Yibin”, leading the west in implementation speed. Agibot’s mass production in Chengdu has further consolidated the foundation for industrial development. The three industries have a clear gradient and closed-loop supporting facilities, comprehensively driving the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing in the southwest.

Five-axis linkage CNC machine tools are the core “mother of industry” for high-end manufacturing, enabling integrated precision machining of complex curved surfaces and special-shaped structural parts. They are widely used in aerospace, new energy vehicles, humanoid robots, high-end medical treatment and other fields, while meeting the precision machining needs of new materials, precision optics, and medical implants. In recent years, domestic five-axis machine tool technology has continued to iterate, narrowing the gap with international advanced levels. Data from 2024 shows that the localization rate of complete domestic five-axis machine tools reached 55%, and the independent matching rate of general core components exceeded 85%. The performance of mid-end models is basically comparable to imported equipment. Relying on the advantages of cost performance and localized services, domestic equipment has achieved large-scale import substitution in new energy and general mold fields. The industry as a whole presents a development pattern of “running neck-and-neck in the mid-end, catching up in the high-end, and lagging in ultra-precision”.

At present, the shortcomings of domestic five-axis machine tools are concentrated in the field of high-end ultra-precision machining: equipment still has deficiencies in ultra-precision accuracy, surface finish, and workpiece consistency. Processing defects are prone to occur in complex thin-walled, deep-cavity, and multi-curvature components, with weak linkage control accuracy and finished product stability. Meanwhile, the equipment has a short non-failure operation time and is prone to accuracy drift under complex working conditions, failing to fully support the stable mass production of high-end products. Core components such as high-end CNC systems, precision spindles, and grating rulers are still highly dependent on overseas markets. The domestic market share of high-end systems is only 20%–30%, and the localization rate of ultra-precision components is less than 20%. In addition, the industry lacks a standardized intelligent process library, processing is highly dependent on manual experience, and technical iteration efficiency is low. Overall, domestic mid-end equipment has reached international standards, high-end hardware parameters are close to imported products, but process stability is insufficient, and there is an obvious technological gap in the ultra-precision field. The industry predicts that by 2030, mainstream domestic high-end five-axis machine tools are expected to compete equally internationally. The ultra-precision field still requires long-term technical research to gradually achieve full industrial chain independent controllability.

As a first-tier enterprise of domestic high-end “mother of industry” and a national-level “Little Giant” enterprise specializing in sophisticated, unique, innovative and new technologies, CATO deeply cultivates the three high-end manufacturing tracks of aerospace, new energy vehicles, and humanoid robots with outstanding core competitiveness. In the field of new energy vehicles, its integrated casting processing equipment has ranked first in China for three consecutive years, serving mainstream automakers such as BYD, Tesla, NIO, and Seres. In the aerospace field, it achieves micron-level precision machining, suitable for the production of titanium alloys, high-temperature alloys, and complex components such as impellers and blisks, and has long been supporting central enterprises such as CASIC and COMAC. At the same time, the equipment can accurately meet the processing standards of micro-precision components such as humanoid robot joints and reducers, helping the implementation of regional high-end precision intelligent manufacturing.

With long-term technical deep cultivation, CATO masters more than 90% of localized core technologies, independently developing key technologies such as CNC systems, five-axis RTCP algorithms, linear motor direct drive, and high-speed motorized spindles. The accuracy, rigidity, and dynamic performance of the equipment are comparable to international first-tier brands such as Germany’s CHIRON and SW, with many core performances reaching international advanced levels. The enterprise’s technologies effectively solve industry pain points such as easy deformation of thin-walled parts, difficult processing of complex curved surfaces, and poor consistency of batch processing accuracy, greatly improving processing efficiency and yield rate. Compared with imported equipment, CATO has the advantages of fast localized service response, low maintenance cost, and timely technical support, with significant cost performance advantages, continuously accelerating the import substitution of high-end machine tools. At present, the enterprise’s overall strength ranks among the top five in the domestic five-axis machine tool industry, and bridge-type and horizontal five-axis machine tools rank among the top three in domestic segmented categories, making it a core backbone enterprise of domestic high-end precision manufacturing.

This Lijia International Intelligent Equipment Exhibition is a concentrated display of the strength of southwest intelligent manufacturing and the rise of domestic high-end machine tools, confirming the upgrading trend of high-end, precision, and intelligent manufacturing in western China. The complete emerging industrial system in the Chengdu-Chongqing region provides rich application scenarios for the high-end machine tool industry. The technological breakthroughs of domestic enterprises represented by CATO also continue to empower the regional industrial chain to supplement, strengthen, and extend chains, forming a virtuous cycle of “industrial demand driving technological innovation, technological upgrading supporting industrial advancement”. Although domestic high-end machine tools still have shortcomings in ultra-precision technology and core component bottlenecks, the general trend of localization substitution is set and the momentum of innovation breakthrough is strong. A powerful country in intelligent manufacturing is rooted in the independence and self-strengthening of the “mother of industry”. In the future, it is expected that more domestic machine tool enterprises will deeply cultivate core technologies, tackle industrial shortcomings, break through overseas technological barriers, and reshape the industrial competition pattern. Based in the southwest and radiating across the country, the domestic high-end machine tool industry will continue to empower regional industrial iteration and upgrading, promote the quality improvement of southwest manufacturing, and inject hard-core intelligent manufacturing power into the independence and self-strengthening of China’s intelligent manufacturing and the high-quality development of the real economy. The track is broad and the future is promising.