A technician debugs a humanoid robot at a company in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province, March 26, 2026. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)
HANGZHOU, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Along China's eastern seaboard, the Ningbo-Zhoushan Port in Zhejiang Province is barely ever quiet. Ships come and go around the clock, and inland, factory floors maintain a similar rhythm.
This combination helps explain Ningbo's prominent role in China's industrial landscape. It is not just a major port, but also one of the country's most important manufacturing hubs.
Here, traditional industries still make up about 55 percent of its industrial base, roughly in line with the national structure. Its industrial reach is strikingly wide, spanning 36 of China's 41 major industrial categories. More than 90 percent of its manufacturers are privately owned, though large state-backed firms also remain part of the picture.
All these features make Ningbo a revealing microcosm of China's manufacturing sector in transition.
"Transition" is certainly the right word. In recent years, the city has steadily upgraded its manufacturing base, using digital tools, industrial internet platforms and AI to make production smarter, more efficient and more precise.
The pace has quickened this year. In the first two months of 2026, the value-added industrial output of enterprises above designated size in Ningbo rose 9.3 percent year on year, 4 percentage points faster than the full-year rate for 2025. Of the city's 36 major industries, 27 expanded. Output in carmaking, computers and communications equipment, as well as general equipment manufacturing, all posted strong growth during this period.
Yet the more revealing story lies not in the headline numbers, but in the changes unfolding on the factory floor.
At an interactive display area run by Ningbo Puzhi Future Robotics Co., Ltd., humanoid robots sway to music while wheeled machines stack goods on supermarket shelves. Streams of data from touch sensors, robotic-arm movements and video feeds are then fed back into model training.
For Zhou Xingyou, chairman of the embodied intelligence business and vice president of Joyson Holding Co., Ltd., a globally oriented smart-manufacturing company with operations ranging from automotive systems to embodied intelligence robotics, Ningbo's edge lies in its abundance of real-world industrial scenarios.
Ningbo's manufacturing base is both broad and dense, providing robotics firms with the structured real-world environments they need. Demand from sectors such as car parts, optics and electronics serves as practical proving grounds for new technologies.
This pattern runs through much of the city's industrial upgrading. In Ningbo, smart manufacturing is less about futuristic displays and more about integrating new tools into established production systems.
At the production base of Ningbo GP & Sonluk Battery Co., Ltd., intelligent manufacturing permeates most of the operation. The plant has an annual capacity of up to 5 billion batteries, with a single line producing 600 a minute. Across 40 production lines, raw materials are fed in automatically, while batteries are moved by automated guided vehicles, inspected by AI systems, packaged and warehoused with little human intervention, then loaded into containers for export.
Zhu Xiangkui, the company's president, said the advantages are most evident in quality control. Each battery must undergo a full visual inspection for defects in six major categories and 18 subcategories, including scratches and leakage.
"That is exactly where intelligent inspection proves its worth," he said. In the past, workers inspected around 1,000 trays of batteries a day, a heavy workload that made occasional missed defects almost unavoidable. AI quality inspection has completely changed this.
Such examples are no longer rare. In industries such as green petrochemicals, new energy vehicles and electronic information, and life sciences and healthcare, AI is increasingly becoming a routine part of production. Among industrial enterprises above designated size, the adoption rate of AI has surpassed 36.7 percent.
Still, Ningbo's strength lies not only in its use of smart technology. It also lies in the type of firms it has fostered: manufacturers that stay close to the shop floor, specialize in niche areas and build strength in critical links of the industrial chain.
Ningbo Yongxin Optics Co., Ltd. is one such firm. Founded in 1997, it has long specialized in optical microscopes and optical components. Its products are used in life sciences, medical optics and industrial inspection, while its core components also feed into autonomous driving, industrial automation, AI and professional imaging equipment.
According to the company, its core customers include international brands such as Zeiss, Leica and Nikon. In recent years, it has also participated in major national projects, including developing China's first space microscopic experiment instrument for the country's space station and manufacturing optical lenses for the Chang'e lunar exploration program.
Yongxin Optics is part of a larger industrial cluster. Ningbo is now home to 119 national-level manufacturing champions in single segments, more than any other Chinese city for the eighth consecutive year. Such firms tend to dominate narrow but important niches, pairing technical depth with strong market positions.
The upgrading can also be seen in industries once thought too traditional to change significantly.
At Youngor Group's 5G smart factory, an automated hanging system runs across the workshop ceiling, carrying semi-finished garments from one workstation to the next. Workers take each piece down, complete their task and place it back on the line for the next stage. According to data from the workshop, the system has cut the production cycle for batch-made garments from 45 days to 32, shortened the lead time for high-end bespoke orders from 15 days to five, and increased overall production efficiency by 40 percent.
"For traditional manufacturers, intelligent transformation is the only way forward," said Li Rucheng, chairman of the group.
Li's view is shared by local manufacturers. One of them argues that in "smart manufacturing," the key word remains "manufacturing," not "smart." Intelligence can boost efficiency, improve quality and open up new possibilities. But without a solid industrial base, the technology risks drifting free of practical use.
Ningbo's experience shows that the shift from "Made in China" to smarter manufacturing is not driven by technology alone. It depends just as much on dense industrial ecosystems, real-world applications, specialized firms and a willingness to keep improving, often over many years, through the unglamorous work of production itself.
Wang Yidong, director of Ningbo's bureau of economy and information technology, believes that the level of a city's manufacturing intelligence depends on steady accumulation, long-term planning and sustained effort.
This helps explain why patience is a recurring theme in Ningbo's development story. Wang Shu, deputy director of the city's science and technology bureau, makes a similar point: in Ningbo, many entrepreneurs start with little more than a backpack, but it typically takes more than a decade to build a substantial business.
"Without patience, those ten years would be unimaginable," Wang said, noting that in the AI era, as intelligent technologies iterate ever faster, the need for strategic long-term thinking is even greater. ■
This photo taken on March 27, 2026 shows a view of a 5G digital workshop of a company in Ningbo, east China's Zhejiang Province. (Xinhua/Huang Zongzhi)
