For every 10 concrete machinery units rolled off the production line in the world, 8 are produced in Hunan; the province’s industrial added value will reach 1.61 trillion yuan in 2025, ranking 9th in the country; there are 94 national-level manufacturing individual champion companies, ranking 6th in the country and 1st in central China.
This set of data outlines the core strength of Hunan as a major manufacturing province.
However, beyond scale, a “triple leap” in the direction of high-end, intelligent, and green is taking root.
The core of high-endization is technological independence and industrial upgrading.
In 2025, the added value of Hunan’s high-tech manufacturing industry will increase by 11.2% year-on-year, and its proportion in industries above designated size will increase to 14.2%.
Behind this growth rate is the realization of domestic substitution of a series of “stuck” technologies that have broken foreign monopoly.
In the field of strategic materials, the third-generation silicon carbide fiber independently developed by Hunan Zerui New Materials can withstand temperatures up to 1800°C for a long time, breaking the long-term foreign blockade on key materials for cutting-edge equipment such as aerospace engines.
In terms of key basic components, the high-strength steel developed by Lianyang Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. has successfully replaced imports, solving the passive situation of “buying at a high price and waiting for half a year” for companies such as Zoomlion.
The 6-inch IGBT chips produced by CRRC Zhuzhou have become the “heart” components of high-speed rail, new energy vehicles and UHV power transmission.
Enterprise transformation cases are vivid footnotes of high-endization.
Sany Group resolutely announced in 2024 that it will completely stop the research and development of fuel-fired heavy trucks and fully shift to the new energy track.
After the pain comes the harvest: in 2025, its domestic sales of new energy heavy trucks will surge by 125% year-on-year, saving customers 2 yuan in freight per kilometer.
Zoomlion has reduced the proportion of revenue highly related to real estate to about 10% through product structure optimization. At the same time, sales revenue from high-end segments such as mining machinery increased more than three times year-on-year.
Intelligent transformation is based on computing power and uses scenarios.
As of the end of May 2026, Hunan Province has a total computing power of 14,120PF, and has 1 pilot-level and 15 excellence-level smart factories.
Powerful computing power supports the deep integration of artificial intelligence and production lines.
Entering Zoomlion’s excavator smart factory, through the integration of information systems and AI technology, shared mixed-flow production of more than 100 excavators is realized. One machine is offline every 6 minutes on average. The steel plate material utilization rate exceeds 90%, and the structural parts in-process inventory is reduced by 70%.
In the Sany Intelligent Heavy Truck Industrial Park, more than 700 AGV autonomous vehicles shuttle efficiently, and new energy heavy trucks also roll off the production line in 6 minutes.
AI’s empowerment is extending from production to the entire chain.
The smart steel project created by Xiangtan Iron and Steel Co., Ltd. and Huawei used large AI models to replace the experience of old masters to achieve precise control of blast furnaces and won the special prize in the National Artificial Intelligence Application Innovation Competition.
The “Xiangyun Platform” independently developed by Shibit Robot has increased AI development efficiency by more than 50%. The humanoid welding robot it developed is planned to be mass-produced in 2026, and can adapt to 360-degree flexible operations in complex scenes such as ships.
Green manufacturing has become the “new passport” for Hunan’s manufacturing to go overseas.
A total of 347 national-level green factories have been established in the province, and the number of provincial-level green factories has exceeded 1,014.
Greening is no longer just an environmental protection requirement, but also has real economic consequences.
In the field of engineering machinery remanufacturing, a remanufactured excavator in Central Xiangtan International Machinery Park consumes 60% less energy and reduces carbon emissions by 80% compared with new products.
With clear environmental protection and economic accounts, its product exports are growing at an annual rate of more than 50%.
In the transformation of traditional industries, the Liling electric porcelain industry has reduced energy consumption per unit of product by more than 25% compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan through kiln transformation and other technologies.
The “one-piece all-paper packaging production line” developed by Chutian Technology uses paper instead of plastic, reducing the use of packaging materials by 30% but increasing production capacity by 50%, providing a green solution for the pharmaceutical industry.
Precise drip irrigation of financial living water for green transformation.
The balance of green loans of China Construction Bank Hunan Branch has reached 243.7 billion yuan, focusing on supporting low-carbon technological transformation of the manufacturing industry.
Provincial fiscal policies are clear, and cities and states that achieve energy conservation and carbon reduction targets will receive a maximum reward of 3 million yuan, directly incentivizing green practices.
In the next five years, Hunan’s “triple leap” is not an isolated technological transformation, but embedded in a system blueprint for 2030.
According to the newly released “Hunan Province’s “15th Five-Year Plan for Strengthening Manufacturing Province”, by 2030, the province’s advanced manufacturing industry will account for more than 54% of the total manufacturing industry, the number of 100 billion-level enterprises will increase from 5 to 8, and the number of national advanced manufacturing clusters will increase from 5 to 6-7.
This means that the existing transformation path will be further strengthened and broadened.
The fiscal policy will be more precise to “invest early, invest in small, and invest in hard technology”, and a single key technology research project can receive up to 20 million yuan in rewards.
The layout of future industries has also begun. Major scientific and technological innovation platforms such as Xiangjiang Science City and Yuelu Mountain Laboratory are focusing on cutting-edge fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and life engineering to cultivate the seeds of new productivity.
It can be foreseen that the next step for Hunan’s manufacturing industry will be to strive to shape the “peak” of technology and the “peaks” of industry on the basis of consolidating the “plateau” of existing industries such as construction machinery, rail transit, and UHV.
Challenges still exist, such as the supply of high-end talents and the strengthening of key links in the industrial chain.
But the direction is clear: a Hunan advanced manufacturing system that no longer relies solely on scale and cost, but relies on technology leadership, intelligence drive and green value-added, is accelerating from blueprint to reality.
The final outcome of this “triple leap” will determine whether Hunan can truly achieve the leap from “an important pole” to a “leading pole” in the national and even global manufacturing landscape.
