Anchoring High-End and Independent Development, the Industrial Mother Machine Industry Enters a New Stage of High-Quality Development

Known as the "heart" of modern industry, industrial mother machines are core equipment supporting the high-quality development of manufacturing, and their development level is directly related to the pace of manufacturing transformation and upgrading. Currently, China's manufacturing industry is steadily advancing from a "manufacturing power" to a "manufacturing strong country", with leapfrog development in the field of industrial mother machines. While achieving remarkable achievements, it also focuses on the two core directions of high-endization and independent controllability, striving to solve development bottlenecks and seize development opportunities.

China's industrial mother machine industry has achieved fruitful results in recent years. In 2025, the machine tool industry made a historic breakthrough: the year-on-year growth rate of machine tool exports reached 21.6%, ranking first in the world for the first time, demonstrating the strong development momentum of China's industrial mother machine industry. Data shows that in 2025, the cumulative output of metal cutting machine tools in China reached 868,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 9.70%; the export volume of machine tools reached 12.91 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 14.60%; the average export price rose sharply by 40.19% year-on-year. The effect of the high-end transformation of domestic machine tools has gradually emerged, and the proportion of exports of high-value-added CNC machine tools has continued to increase.

Behind the impressive achievements, the industrial mother machine industry still faces some structural challenges: overcapacity in the mid-to-low-end market and fierce homogeneous competition remain, and the level of autonomy of high-end complete machines and core components still has room for improvement. At present, about 70% of high-end CNC systems in the domestic market still rely on imports. Although the accuracy of domestic machine tools under no-load laboratory conditions has reached the international advanced level, their accuracy stability and retention need further optimization under harsh working conditions such as high speed and heavy cutting. As market demand shifts from "quantitative satisfaction" to "qualitative breakthrough", accelerating the transformation of industrial mother machines towards high-endization and autonomy has become a key hurdle for the high-quality development of the industry.

Relevant planning proposals clearly put forward strengthening original innovation and tackling key core technologies. This deployment has pointed out the direction for the development of the industrial mother machine industry and greatly encouraged industry practitioners. Insiders generally believe that China's complete industrial system, broad market space and rich application scenarios, coupled with strong policy support and sustained market demand traction, have brought rare development opportunities for the industrial mother machine industry. The next five years will be a critical window for industrial breakthroughs, and the entire industry is fully committed to technological research to achieve a higher level of independent controllability.

In terms of industrial layout, China's industrial mother machine industry is mostly concentrated in the eastern coastal areas. Although it has the advantage of being close to the market, it has high requirements for the stability of core technical talents. In contrast, the western region has low talent mobility and continuously improved industrial supporting facilities. This differentiated advantage has laid a solid foundation for some regions to build characteristic industrial clusters of industrial mother machines. Based on regional advantages and new momentum of east-west cooperation, promoting the coordinated regional development of the industrial mother machine industry and building key industrial hinterlands and industrial backup bases have become important paths to strengthen the safety of the industrial chain and supply chain, and relevant proposals are being continuously promoted and implemented.

Currently, the industrial mother machine industry is in a critical period of transformation and upgrading, and high-endization and independent controllability have become the only way for industrial development. Industry practitioners are based on the industrial foundation, focusing on key technological research, optimizing industrial layout, promoting in-depth integration of industry, universities and research institutions, helping to achieve breakthroughs in domestic high-end CNC systems and key functional components, and gradually breaking technical barriers. With the implementation of various measures, China's industrial mother machine industry will continue to break through development bottlenecks, continuously improve core competitiveness, inject strong momentum into the high-quality development of the manufacturing industry, and promote China to take a more solid step from a "manufacturing power" to a "manufacturing strong country".