In the first half of 2026, a seemingly inconspicuous but far-reaching industry trend emerged in the domestic machine tool industry: many leading complete machine manufacturers have taken the initiative to offer olive branches to domestically produced core components. The localization of core components is shifting from parts companies working alone to collaborative operations across the entire industry chain.
Recently disclosed industry actions confirm this trend: Jinan No. 2 Machine Tool signed a three-year strategic procurement agreement for domestic high-end electric drives exceeding 400 million yuan, officially integrating domestic electric drives into the core supply chain system; General Technology Group and Dongfang Electric Alliance
Hands on high-end five-axis linkage CNC machine tools; Wuzhong Group and Huazhong CNC jointly develop high-end intelligent CNC systems; Shenyang Machine Tool has also launched a centralized procurement project for domestic tool holders and accessories in 2026, and simultaneously promotes domestic substitution of core components in many fields.
These scattered industry actions collectively point in a clear direction: whole-part collaboration is changing from past industry initiatives to actual industry-wide actions.
For a long time, China’s machine tool industry has always had an unbalanced pattern of “integrating the strong and leaving the weak”: the production of complete machines has reached a considerable scale, and the localization rate of five-axis machine tools has jumped from 18% in 2020 to the current 59.5%. However, core indicators such as accuracy maintenance and key component performance are still far behind the international advanced level.
Jia Zhenyuan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, once publicly stated that my country’s high-end machine tools still face core technology and reliability challenges. Some people in the industry said that the accuracy of imported high-end machine tools can be maintained stably for three to five years, while the accuracy of domestic equipment is not inferior to imported products in the no-load state of the laboratory. Once it enters real production conditions, “the performance is stable in the first half of the year, but the accuracy is difficult to guarantee after one year.”
The core of this gap is often not the overall machine design capabilities, but the performance shortcomings of invisible core functional components such as spindles, tool holders, and CNC systems.
The relevant person in charge of the China Machine Tool Industry Association said that the future development of the industry will focus on two major directions: first, technological innovation will shift from single-machine performance improvement to intelligent manufacturing system integration and data interconnection; second, strengthen industry chain collaboration, especially to make up for the shortcomings of core functional components, and promote the formation of a community of interests between host companies and upstream and downstream small and medium-sized enterprises.
Generally speaking, complete machine manufacturers cannot passively wait for spare parts technology iterations, and parts companies cannot build cars behind closed doors without being divorced from market demand. The two parties must form a linkage mechanism: complete machine manufacturers “come up with questions” based on actual application needs, and component manufacturers “answer questions” with targeted research and development, and jointly promote the performance upgrade of core components.
This model has already been implemented in local areas and has taken effect: in 2024, the Shenyang Industrial Machinery Cluster was selected into the list of national advanced manufacturing clusters, and has initially formed a full industrial chain from basic parts, core components, CNC systems to complete machine manufacturing and application services.
In June 2026, Liaoning Yerbo Precision, which specializes in the R&D and manufacturing of high-end CNC machine tool functional components, was established in Shenyang. Its main products cover core functional components such as spindles, screw guides, tool holders and tool magazines, providing nearby complete machine companies with fast-responding supply chain support.
In the subdivision track of powered tool holders, the results of whole-zero collaboration have already appeared: at the 2025 CCMT exhibition, powered tool holders have become the mainstream product of the exhibition. BMT interface forms have become popular, and products are becoming serialized and modularized. The repeat positioning accuracy of the domestic BMT series of powered tool holders has been improved to 0.003mm, achieving full series coverage from BMT40 to BMT65, with complete axial, radial, universal, hobbing, and slot models.
What deserves more attention is the upgrade of adaptability. Domestic manufacturers can already produce special power tool holders that are specially adapted to imported models such as Mazak, Tsugami, Doosan, etc. Machine manufacturers do not need to specially adjust and design the tool holders when developing new models. Old machine tools can also be directly installed and used after modification, which greatly reduces the cost of domestic replacement.
Relevant persons in charge of domestic enterprises that have been deeply involved in the power tool holder track for more than ten years said that the core value of whole-to-zero collaboration is to provide complete machine manufacturers with a reliable, fast-responding, and high-quality domestic core component supply option. With the continuous advancement of industry-wide collaboration, the process of comprehensive localization of high-end machine tool core components is expected to further accelerate, providing more solid industrial base machine support for the upgrading of my country’s manufacturing industry.
