As global manufacturing accelerates its tech-driven evolution, Chinese factories are at a turning point, moving from scale-driven growth to efficiency-focused upgrades. Yet they remain constrained by three challenges: equipment that operates in isolation, fragmented technologies that are difficult to integrate, and rising energy costs that complicate decarbonization.
The sector’s response has been a shift from single-point automation to system-wide upgrades aimed at improving efficiency while adapting to market volatility.
In an interview with Chinese media, Inovance chairman Zhu Xingming predicted that wireless operations will become the norm on industrial floors within the next five years. Based on this trend, Inovance has outlined a strategy built on four pillars:
- High-end manufacturing: With consumers demanding better quality of life, manufacturers must refine processes to deliver superior products and services.
- Greener production: To align with global sustainability goals, factories need to cut energy use and waste while adopting more sustainable production models.
- Intelligence: Smart manufacturing goes beyond task automation. It involves using artificial intelligence and robotics to shift more work to machines that can learn and make decisions, enhancing efficiency and flexibility.
- Internationalization: China’s manufacturing sector has advanced through three stages of globalization, first exporting goods made in China, then moving production capacity abroad, and now entering a “global for local” phase that integrates international R&D talent, engineers, industrial workers, and supply chains to support localized operations.
Showcasing system-level solutions
At the China International Industry Fair on September 23 in Shanghai, Inovance departed from the equipment-heavy exhibits typical of industrial expos. Instead, it presented an end-to-end digital solution spanning design, manufacturing, energy, and operations.
In practice, factories face bottlenecks such as complex cabling, slow fault diagnostics, and difficult equipment maintenance. To address these, Inovance has developed four system architectures designed to drive automation upgrades toward greater flexibility and intelligence.
For decades, wired communication between machines has limited production flexibility and efficiency. Dense cabling raises installation costs and complicates maintenance. To overcome this, Inovance introduced its Ino Air wireless synchronized motion control system, which supports a one-millisecond communication cycle, microsecond-level synchronization jitter, and industrial-grade reliability. Already deployed in the world’s first wireless labeling machine, Ino Air is designed to eliminate cable constraints and shorten production line upgrade cycles.
On the energy and data side, Inovance launched an intelligent drive system that integrates flat-wire motors with wireless frequency conversion technology, linking energy and data flows. Its intelligent motion control system unifies data flow, control flow, and safety monitoring flow, enabling secure information exchange across production lines.
For maintenance, Inovance’s IPT210 valve island can reportedly compress fault detection from hours to milliseconds, reducing losses from unplanned downtime.
In precision operations, Inovance’s robots achieve a load-to-weight ratio exceeding 0.5. Its seven-axis bionic arm, built with full-joint torque sensing, delivers high-precision force control for complex remote tasks. These systems are already deployed in machine tool processing, injection molding, and new energy production lines.
Preparing for humanoid robots
As embodied intelligence moves from labs to industry, humanoid robots are emerging as a key technology to lower labor costs and handle high-risk tasks. Inovance is focusing on industrializing humanoid robotics with a full-stack solution spanning hardware and AI.
On the hardware side, it has developed integrated planetary joint actuators and high-torque-density frameless motors. These components, capable of operating continuously for tens of thousands of hours, provide compact but durable “muscles and bones” for humanoid robots. Their resilience makes them suitable for tasks such as automotive welding, chemical inspections, and machining in hazardous environments.
On the software side, Inovance has built the iFG platform, described as a “digital employee incubator.” It combines a data engine with low-code tools to transform raw data into training material and allows non-specialists to build task-specific AI agents. By coordinating large and small models, the system can interpret complex instructions while delivering millisecond-level responses, balancing intelligence with real-time performance.
“Looking ahead, the most promising application of AI will be in intelligent robots, especially humanoid robots,” Zhu said. “With sharper tactile senses, better vision systems, and the ability to perform complex tasks and make decisions, humanoid robots will increasingly take on human work. This may well become the most important direction for AI replacing human labor. In manufacturing, AI will permeate every stage—people, machines, materials, methods, and environments—but the biggest transformation will come from human-machine collaboration.”
He added, “As this shift unfolds, Chinese companies must adopt a more integrated, localized approach to internationalization. By aligning intelligent manufacturing capabilities with global industrial needs, they can help build the manufacturing ecosystems of the future.”
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Huang Nan for 36Kr.