At the production workshop of Dingtai Gaoke in Dongguan, rows of equipment run silently behind glass. Drill needles thinner than a human hair are produced in batches, and they will punch holes invisible to the naked eye into circuit boards.
These tiny holes will open onto a larger world inside phones, computers, and servers around the globe. "Demand from the AI industry is so strong right now that the company has to raise capacity every two or three days, and supply still falls far short of demand," Chairwoman Wang Xin told reporters.
From the precision and speed of a single drill needle, one can see Guangdong's accelerating leap on the advanced manufacturing track. In implementing the arrangements of the Party and the state, 15 industries rank first nationwide in scale, there are 10 trillion-yuan-level industrial clusters, 8 national advanced manufacturing clusters, and 9 manufacturing enterprises in the Fortune Global 500. These figures serve as vivid evidence of Guangdong's commitment to the real economy, to manufacturing as the foundation, and to continuously expanding and strengthening advanced manufacturing.
On October 9, Guangdong Province held a provincial advanced manufacturing conference to further study, redeploy, and implement the province's advanced manufacturing development and the building of a manufacturing powerhouse for the current period and beyond, setting out again with resolute steps.
Strengthening the foundation through innovation and forging self-controlled hard power
Practice has repeatedly shown that key core technologies cannot be obtained by begging, bought, or requested. Guangdong knows well that competition in advanced manufacturing ultimately comes down to a contest of innovation capacity and the resilience of industrial chains.
In Shenzhen, the integrated circuit industry grew at an average annual compound rate of 10.8% during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. Major achievements such as Shengteng chips and Xinkailai equipment have continued to emerge, turning the vision of "building chips for China and making chips for AI" into reality.
In Guangzhou, Yuexin Semiconductor, a chain-leading enterprise in integrated circuits cultivated by Guangdong itself, has moved from "surviving" to "creating distinctive features" in 12-inch wafer manufacturing and has become an important force participating in the global division of labor in silicon photonics.
In Dongguan, Dingtai Gaoke has pushed drill needles, the "industrial teeth," to the world's top level. Its core equipment is fully independently developed, monthly capacity exceeds 100 million units, and its global market share is nearly 30%, firmly ranking first in the world. This company, which started from an assembly line, now stands at the very top of the global industrial chain.
"There are still many key technical areas in 6G that need original breakthroughs," said Fang Rong, chairman of ZTE. ZTE has already formed a considerable number of patent arrangements in core 6G technology areas. In the deep waters of original innovation, Guangdong enterprises are forming more and more "Chinese solutions."
In Zhongkai High-tech Zone in Huizhou, Jiangfeng Electronics has fully localized targets, Ruijie New Materials is the world's exclusive holder of mass production technology for three types of diffusion plates with a global market share of 20%, and Meirui Electronics has used nearly 60 patents to break through bottleneck processes and become a C919 supply chain enterprise. A group of small and medium-sized enterprises, with the strength of "specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative" development, are consolidating the foundation for self-controlled industrial chains.
The Guangdong Provincial Department of Finance arranges more than 20 billion yuan annually in special funds to support high-quality development of a manufacturing powerhouse. The Provincial State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission connects the "three ends" of research and development, production, and application, and promotes the integration of the "four chains" of innovation, industry, capital, and talent, enabling more key core technologies to move from "following" to "running in parallel" and "leading."
The Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou innovation cluster has topped the Global Innovation Index for two consecutive years. With plans to build the Greater Bay Area Innovation Belt, linking the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong and Guangzhou-Zhuhai-Macao science and technology innovation corridors, and gathering major scientific and technological infrastructure, high-level laboratories, and first-class research institutes, Guangdong is upgrading "geographical concentration" into "ecological coordination and innovation."
Guided by "three transformations" to reshape a new paradigm of production methods
The modernization transformation of manufacturing is a profound change from production methods to industrial forms. Guangdong adheres to the direction of intelligentization, greening, and integration, takes a new generation of intelligent manufacturing as the main direction, and promotes the reconstruction of the entire manufacturing process.
Intelligentization is reshaping the production function of Guangdong manufacturing. More than 10,000 industrial enterprises above designated size in Dongguan have completed digital transformation. AI visual quality inspection can scan 30 precision solder joints per second with an accuracy rate exceeding 99.5%. Workers are transforming into "AI trainers," using the experience of "master craftsmen" to refine algorithm models so that AI becomes more accurate with use.
Shenzhen's core artificial intelligence industry scale exceeds 220 billion yuan. Its output of industrial robots and service robots accounts for 25.2% and 42.9% of the national total, respectively. "Training vouchers, corpus vouchers, and model vouchers" precisely empower small and medium-sized enterprises. Jialichuang's 3D printing super factory has deployed more than 1,500 industrial-grade devices, with average monthly parts manufacturing exceeding 1 million pieces, shipment in as fast as 5 hours, and an order on-time delivery rate stably above 95%. From single-piece prototyping to trial production of thousands of pieces, from R&D assistance tools to large-scale industrial flexible manufacturing, the time from a drawing to a finished product has been compressed to hours.
Greening is becoming the new foundation of Guangdong manufacturing. Guangxin Holdings took the lead in releasing a carbon peak action plan, built four national-level green factories, and was included in the Fortune China ESG Influence List for two consecutive years. Dongguan DeRUCCI's smart factory has deployed photovoltaic power generation across its entire site, giving every kilowatt-hour a "carbon ledger." From a solar panel to a zero-carbon park, Guangdong manufacturing is turning green and low-carbon development from a "compliance cost" into a "competitive advantage."
Guangdong Province is accelerating the construction of national and provincial zero-carbon parks, promoting the building of green factories and green supply chains, and turning green and low-carbon development into a core advantage for Guangdong manufacturing in global competition. With about 7.2% of the nation's energy consumption, it supports 10.4% of the nation's economic output. A total of 660 national green factories, 12 green industrial parks, and 104 green supply chain management enterprises have been created. Greening is an inevitable choice for breaking through resource and environmental constraints and achieving the organic unity of economic, social, and ecological benefits.
Integration is breaking industrial boundaries and expanding value space. Desay SV has upgraded from an automotive electronics hardware supplier to a smart mobility solution provider. Its cockpit-driving integration solution combines the cockpit and intelligent driving into one, delivering not a single component but an integrated solution combining hardware and software.
The 4.4-square-kilometer Fuwei community in Shenzhen gathers more than 4,300 logistics enterprises and handles more than 1 million cross-border parcels per day on average, reaching major Asian cities in as fast as 2 days and the world in 3 days. The parcels sent from here are no longer OEM toys and cheap clothing, but high-end apparel and smart hardware from Shenzhen's own original brands. The logistics model has upgraded from "simple transportation" to "supply chain empowerment," deeply integrating services with manufacturing.
Building a grand pattern of a modern industrial system through systematic layout
There are no sunset industries, only sunset workshops. Advanced manufacturing takes root across thousands of industries and requires systematic thinking and adaptation to local conditions. Guangdong coordinates the upgrading of traditional industries, the growth of emerging industries, and the cultivation of future industries, using the orderly replacement and overall leap of the three types of industries to provide all-round support for the development of advanced manufacturing.
Traditional industries are Guangdong's valuable family assets. Traditional industries such as electronics, machinery, chemicals, light industry, building materials, textiles, and shipbuilding are moving toward advanced manufacturing through optimization and upgrading. Foshan's industrial enterprises above designated size have a digital transformation rate exceeding 80%, and 80 digital and intelligent demonstration factories have been built, giving new vitality to the saying that "where there is a home, there is Foshan manufacturing."
Emerging industries are the new force of advanced manufacturing. Guangzhou's six major tracks of "land, sea, and air" and "chips, displays, and pharmaceuticals" have a total scale exceeding one trillion yuan. Guangzhou Shipyard International's total orders have exceeded 100 billion yuan, with schedules extending to 2030, and it is steadily building a "world display capital." Shenzhen's new energy vehicle output increased by 145.2%, continuing to maintain good momentum. Dongguan's server output in 2025 is nearly 600,000 units, and one out of every 10 servers in China is produced in Dongguan. The computing industry island coordinates 9,000 mu of land and plans to invest 100 billion yuan over the next five years, striving to build an AI server-related industrial cluster worth 500 billion yuan by 2030.
Future industries are the key to seizing the high ground. In the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Guangdong has made forward-looking arrangements in key areas such as sixth-generation mobile communications, embodied intelligence, cell and gene therapy, brain science and brain-computer interfaces, hydrogen energy, advanced nuclear energy, deep-sea exploration, and quantum technology. ZTE fully supports Guangdong's ministry-province collaborative pilot verification and promotes the integration of new scenarios such as the low-altitude economy, satellite internet, and robots into 6G technology research and development. Guangzhou focuses on embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and quantum technology and is creating a national future industry pilot zone.
Guangdong's manufacturing not only reshapes itself with AI, but is also the manufacturing that makes AI. From the mass production of a humanoid robot to the rise of a computing industry island; from the precision of a drill needle to the formation of a trillion-yuan-level industrial cluster, every step forward in Guangdong's advanced manufacturing is building a more substantial material and technological foundation for Chinese-style modernization.
"Ten thousand years is too long; seize the day and the hour." Standing at a new starting point in the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, Guangdong will continue to deepen its work in advanced manufacturing, consolidate reasonable growth in quantity with effective improvement in quality, and ensure that the industrial economy progresses steadily and improves in quality through industrial resilience, chain stability, and strong entities.