In 2026, the automation equipment industry will face many development opportunities and challenges.
From policy support to industry trends to core stocks, they all show a unique development trend.
First, let’s take a look at the relevant support policies for the automation equipment industry.
In 2026, multi-layered policies from the national to local levels will simultaneously support the intelligent manufacturing and automation equipment industries, with three core categories of benefits.
First, special subsidies for manufacturing equipment updates have been implemented.
The country has released 200 billion special treasury bonds to support factories in eliminating old equipment and replacing intelligent automated production lines.
Enterprises purchasing robots, CNC machine tools, and intelligent assembly equipment can not only receive national subsidies, but also additional purchase subsidies and insurance compensation in many places, which directly reduces the cost of factory automation transformation and stimulates demand for equipment procurement.
Second, humanoid robots are ushering in a special plan for implementation.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has made it clear that this year it will complete the implementation of 10,000 industrial humanoid robots, covering various factory positions such as assembly, handling, and quality inspection, and at the same time introduce unified industry production standards.
If you want to make a humanoid robot, supporting automation equipment such as servo, reducer, and visual inspection must be upgraded simultaneously, bringing new orders to upstream parts companies.
Third, there is a hard requirement for domestic substitution of high-end equipment.
The “15th Five-Year Plan” intelligent manufacturing plan proposes that the localization rate of core parts of industrial robots should exceed 75%.
In the past, factories mostly relied on foreign brands for high-end automation components. Now, policies guide factories to give priority to domestic products, leaving local parts and machine tool manufacturers with long-term alternatives.
My personal industry view is that this round of policies no longer only supports complete machine assembly companies, but focuses on manufacturers that independently develop core components. Companies that can produce servo, reducer, and CNC systems themselves will have greater room to realize their subsequent performance.
Then, analyze the medium and long-term development trends of the automation equipment industry.
Humanoid robots open up a new incremental market.
This year is the starting point for the batch implementation of humanoid robots. Factories will use a large number of humanoid equipment to replace human labor, which will force the simultaneous upgrade of supporting servo, reducer, visual inspection, and precision machine tools.
The industry has shifted from a single track of traditional industrial robots to the growth curve of humanoid robot supporting equipment, and the long-term prosperity of upstream core components will be higher.
Domestic equipment gradually replaces overseas products, and market share continues to increase.
In the early years, high-precision automation parts were basically monopolized by Japanese, European and American companies. After years of technical polishing, the product performance of domestic leading manufacturers has reached the standard. With the dual factors of supply chain security and policy support, factories are replacing imported equipment faster and faster, and the performance growth of domestic parts companies is highly certain.
There are many downstream application industries and can hedge against industry cycles.
The supply of automation equipment covers multiple industries such as new energy vehicles, energy storage, 3C electronics, PCB, semiconductors, and mechanical processing.
Even if the demand in one of the industries temporarily weakens, orders from other tracks can make up for the gap. A comprehensive leader with a multi-track layout will have smaller performance fluctuations and stronger stability.
With the combination of AI and automation equipment, flexible production lines have become mainstream.
Today’s smart factories are no longer fixed assembly lines. With AI vision and intelligent motion control systems, one production line can produce a variety of products to meet the company’s multi-category production needs.
Equipment companies with AI integrated solutions are more likely to obtain long-term large orders and have higher customer stickiness.
Then, a popular and detailed explanation of the 12 core stocks of automation equipment is divided into four major subdivisions.
(1) Comprehensive leader in motion control (2 units)
Inovance Technology, a domestic leader in the servo motor and controller industry, independently develops a complete set of motion control systems. Its products are supplied to multiple industries such as lithium batteries, photovoltaics, and humanoid robots. It is also equipped with AI intelligent production line solutions. Its downstream cooperative factories are located at home and abroad. Its multi-track layout can smooth industry cycle fluctuations, and it is one of the targets with the strongest comprehensive strength in automation equipment.
Eston ranks first in the country in shipments of domestic industrial robots all year round. Controllers, servos, and reducers are all produced independently. Six-axis and collaborative robots are widely used in automobiles and electronics processing plants. Self-developed industrial humanoid robots have been trialled on a small scale at OEMs, covering the entire chain of automated machines.
(2) Core precision components of robots (3 pieces)
Green Harmonic is the domestic leader in harmonic reducers, with a domestic market share of over 60%. It is the core accessory for lightweight joints of humanoid robots, breaking the long-term monopoly of foreign companies. Overseas factories have been put into production, domestic and foreign robot manufacturers have stable supplies, and production capacity continues to expand to match downstream increases.
Double Ring Transmission, a benchmark company for RV heavy-duty reducers, specializes in heavy-duty robot joint accessories, which are suitable for heavy-duty welding and palletizing equipment in factories. Products suitable for large joints of humanoid robots have passed the test of leading companies. With its precision gear processing technology, it firmly occupies the heavy-duty automation equipment track.
Hechuan Technology is a high-quality enterprise of small and medium-sized servo and small reducer. It specializes in supporting PCB and lithium battery small automation production lines. Its lightweight servo products have outstanding cost performance. It cooperates with a large number of small and medium-sized equipment integrators, and its orders for segmented tracks are growing steadily.
(3) Industrial master machines and laser automation equipment (3 pieces)
Haitian Precision, the leader in high-end CNC machine tools, specializes in large-scale gantry processing equipment, which is used to process humanoid robot structural parts and new energy vehicle precision parts. Benefiting from the wave of factory equipment updates across the country, domestic machine tools have ample room to replace imports, and overseas export orders have grown steadily.
Han’s Laser, a comprehensive leader in laser automation equipment, supplies laser cutting, welding, and testing equipment to the entire 3C, photovoltaic, and PCB industries. It is equipped with AI visual inspection equipment to meet the needs of factory intelligent transformation in one stop, and covers a wide range of downstream application scenarios.
Bochu Electronics is the leader in supporting control systems for laser cutting equipment. Most of the domestic medium and low-power laser equipment will be equipped with its software. It is an industry-critical supporting equipment with a light-asset operation model, strong profit stability, and high industry demand resilience.
(4) Specialized automation equipment and visual inspection (4 pieces)
Bozhong Seiko, a leader in dedicated automation lines in the 3C and energy storage industries, can provide a complete set of intelligent production lines for assembly and testing, and has long-term ties with leading consumer electronics and energy storage manufacturers. The flexible production line can be adapted to the production of multiple products, fully benefiting from the equipment update needs of the two major tracks.
Supcon Technology, a leader in automation management and control systems for chemical and electric power plants, serves asset-heavy process industries. The intelligent transformation of factories requires supporting equipment. Capital expenditures in downstream industries are stable in the long term, with cyclical fluctuations much smaller than consumer automation equipment.
Opto is a leader in core machine vision components. Industrial cameras and lenses are equipped with various automated quality inspection equipment. It is the core supplier of humanoid robot visual recognition modules. The AI vision algorithm is continuously updated to adapt to factory inspection links in the entire industry.
Yiheda, a one-stop supplier of automation standard parts, provides general mechanical parts to various automation equipment manufacturers across the country. Its downstream customers cover all track equipment companies. During the industry expansion cycle, orders are placed simultaneously to increase volume, and the demand is dispersed and has strong anti-risk capabilities.
Finally, there are also objective potential uncertainties in the industry.
When the overall profitability of the manufacturing industry is weak, factories will postpone their automation transformation plans, directly reducing the order size of equipment companies; the mass production cost reduction of humanoid robots is slower than expected, which will lengthen the demand release cycle of supporting automation equipment; many companies are simultaneously expanding the production of servo, reducer, and CNC machine tools, and the concentrated release of production capacity in the future may compress product profit margins; overseas established parts manufacturers continue to cut prices and compete, which will divert domestic replacement orders from domestic companies.
In 2026, the automation equipment sector will have three policy dividends: subsidies for equipment updates, the introduction of humanoid robots, and domestic substitution of high-end equipment. The industry’s prosperity is clearly stratified: the growth certainty of the core components track is the highest, the performance of the comprehensive machine leader is stable, and the segmented special equipment has short-term flexibility.
The 12 targets this time completely cover the four core tracks of motion control, precision transmission, industrial machine, and special automation, respectively corresponding to different growth logics of the industry. All policies, companies, and industry data in the article are only for industry popularization reference and do not represent the subsequent market trend judgment of sectors and individual stocks.
