CHONGQING, China, Dec. 19, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- A news report from Xinhua Finance.
The finals of the Second Innovation Competition for Intelligent Manufacturing Solutions, held in conjunction with the Innovation Conference, took place from December 17 to 18 in Yongchuan District, Chongqing. The event was jointly organized by the Instrumentation Technology and Economy Institute (ITEI), China Economic Information Service, the Central State-Owned Enterprises Collaborative Innovation Platform for Intelligent Manufacturing, and the China Expert Committee of the IEC Systems Committee for Smart Manufacturing.
Since its launch in August 2025, the competition received 841 submissions, spanning the energy, transportation, machinery, electronics, and metallurgy sectors. Following multiple rounds of review and evaluation, five projects earned top honors, 10 received second-tier awards, and 15 received third-tier awards, in addition to several special category recognitions.
At the Innovation Conference, several industry developments were announced. Among them, the AUTBUS Professional Committee of the China Association for Mechatronics Technology and Application was formally established. The new committee is expected to play a crucial role in supporting China's drive toward end-to-end, domestically developed innovation in industrial communications, from fundamental protocols and core chips through higher-level applications.
The conference also featured a signing ceremony for industry-academia collaboration agreements between ITEI and several Yongchuan-based universities. With a shared focus on driving the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing, the partnerships are designed to strengthen integration between universities and businesses, and establish a framework that connects talent development with the commercialization of research outcomes to address evolving industrial needs.
In recent years, Chongqing has pursued a development strategy focused on both industry and manufacturing. By integrating artificial intelligence into manufacturing and prioritizing application-driven deployment in key industrial use cases, the municipality has accelerated the implementation of its "AI + Manufacturing" initiative. Following the successful hosting of the inaugural competition last year, the event has returned to Chongqing for its finals for a second consecutive year. This demonstrates the event's strong alignment with the city's broader strategy to modernize the manufacturing sector through the "Industrial Brain + Future Factory" model.
As the host of both the competition finals and the Innovation Conference, Yongchuan District is building out an advanced manufacturing cluster system. To date, the district has developed Chongqing's largest standalone big data industrial center, rolled out 374 intelligent transformation projects, and assisted 40 percent of its large companies in transitioning their management operations to cloud-based platforms. Yongchuan has also had four projects selected as national-level smart manufacturing pilot and demonstration programs, while 14 projects have been named municipal-level pilots for smart manufacturing and industrial internet development. Moreover, the district has completed 53 digital workshops and 10 smart factories, further reinforcing the foundation for innovation-led and sustainable growth across the region's manufacturing sector.
At the same time, a series of related events took place in Yongchuan, including the Smart Manufacturing and Inspection Equipment Exhibition, the 2025 Annual Conference of the Intelligent Inspection Equipment Industry Development Alliance, and the plenary sessions of SAC/TC 124 and SAC/TC 338.
