BEIJING: Humanoid robots, memory chips, and next-generation batteries shared the spotlight across 10 themed exhibition zones at the Hefei Binhu International Convention and Exhibition Center on Sunday, as the 2026 World Manufacturing Convention (WMC) opened in Hefei, capital of East China’s Anhui Province, drawing more than 2,000 guests from home and abroad.
The Global Times noticed that many of the star exhibits come from local players. Once known for washing machines and other home appliances, Anhui is now home to memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT), battery producer Gotion High-Tech, and AiMOGA, the robotics business of automaker Chery. Hefei also hosts China’s “artificial sun” fusion research facilities and cutting-edge quantum computing research.
“Anhui is a typical example of a province whose overall industrial upgrading has been driven by the rise of manufacturing,” Tian Yun, a veteran economist, told the Global Times on Sunday. Once unremarkable among China’s six central provinces, Anhui now outpaces traditional manufacturing heavyweights such as Henan, Hubei, and Hunan in industrial momentum, Tian said.
As a leading platform for global manufacturing exchanges and cooperation, the WMC has become a barometer of China’s industrial transformation. With the UK as the guest country of honor and Southwest China’s Sichuan Province as the guest province, this year’s convention has attracted more than 500 foreign representatives. More than 40 companies from countries including the US, France, and Russia are exhibiting in the 70,000-square-meter venue, according to the organizer.
The Hefei convention comes just days after a national conference on advanced manufacturing was held in Beijing from September 16 to 17 – the first national-level conference themed around advanced manufacturing.
“The back-to-back convening of these two conferences shows that advanced manufacturing is being prioritized at an unprecedented pace and level,” Chen Jing, vice president and research fellow at the Society for the Study of Technological and Strategic Trends, told the Global Times.
The focus has shifted to sectors representing new quality productive forces, including AI, embodied intelligence, quantum technology, biomanufacturing, and the low-altitude economy, while openness goes hand in hand with efforts to strengthen industrial chains, Chen said.
“Centered on ‘AI plus manufacturing’ and the integration of the digital and real economies, China aims to seize the commanding heights of the next round of industrial revolution,” he said.
Tian sees a bigger shift is underway. After more than 30 years of development, Chinese manufacturing has climbed from the lower and middle tiers of what was once a single global pyramid to the high end, and the global industrial landscape is set to take on a clear “twin-peak” structure, he said. “China’s achievements in industrial upgrading, at both the national and local levels, offer a practical reference for countries around the world,” Tian said. –The Daily Mail-Global Times news exchange item
