The Sixth Industrial Mother Machine High-Quality Development Forum was held in Wenling, Zhejiang on 10 September 2026, hosted by the Industrial Development Promotion Centre of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Discussion centred on moving onto a new track — competing in intelligent machine tools through the combination of next-generation artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing, rather than chasing the existing high-end product structure.
Opening the forum, the Ministry noted that China's industrial mother machine industry recorded revenue of more than 1.6 trillion yuan in 2025 and has ranked first globally for more than a decade, with a complete R&D and production system spanning subtractive, formative and additive equipment, functional components, CNC systems and industrial software. Priorities set out for the next stage include breakthroughs in key core technologies, deeper integration of AI with machine tools, support for system solution providers, and demonstration application of complete production lines.
Latest industry data
CMTBA data published on 8 September shows revenue for the first seven months of 2026 reached 620 billion yuan, up 7.1% year on year, with metal cutting machine tools up 17.4% and metal forming machine tools down 3.8%.
Order indicators, which lead revenue, remain stronger than the top line: new orders rose 14.5% year on year and order backlog rose 16.6%. Total import and export value reached US$20.23 billion, up 6.0%, with exports of US$13.91 billion (+5.7%) and imports of US$6.32 billion (+6.6%). Output of metal cutting machine tools by industrial enterprises above designated size was 512,000 units, up 0.8%.
