Tongren · Industrial Robot Technology Services

Mercury and manganese are the base colors of Tongren's industry. Wanshan has mined cinnabar and smelted mercury since the Western Zhou dynasty; from the 1950s to the 1980s it built China's largest mercury production base integrating mining, smelting and research. From 1958 to 1962 it ranked first in the world in output for five consecutive years, accounted for 15.62% of the country's foreign-exchange reserves over the same period, and was called "patriotic mercury" by Premier Zhou Enlai. In October 2001 the Guizhou Mercury Mine was closed and declared bankrupt by policy, leaving more than 200 ancient mining sites, 460,000 square meters of modern industrial buildings and 970 km of underground mining tunnels. In 2009 Wanshan was listed among the second batch of national resource-depleted cities; since 2015, tourism developers have been brought in to transform the Cinnabar Ancient Town into a scenic area. During the Third Front construction period, work began in June 1960 on the Guizhou Mercury Mine's Dalong Power Plant at Huoshaopo in Dalong, and it started generating electricity on December 1, 1962, with more than 2,000 employees at its peak, plus supporting worker housing, canteens, a technical school and schools for employees' children. The Hunan–Guizhou Railway broke ground in 1970 and opened in October 1972; Dalong subsequently built eight major freight stations and became the main regional logistics distribution center for eastern Guizhou and western Hunan. In 1999 the Guizhou Dalong Economic Development Zone was approved by the provincial government. On manganese, since 2011, drawing on new prospecting theories, 4 world-class super-large manganese deposits and China's first extra-large rich-manganese deposit have been confirmed in Tongren, raising the province's manganese reserves to first in Asia and earning Tongren the name "Asia's manganese capital". New-energy materials development in the Dalong zone now spans more than 30 years.

In 2024, Tongren's GDP reached 164.981 billion yuan, up 4.9%, entering the province's second tier for the first time; above-scale industrial value added grew 8.2%, fixed-asset investment grew 19.6%, and the green economy accounted for 51.2%. The leading industry is new-type functional materials: in 2024 its above-scale output value reached 27.43 billion yuan and gross output value 35.12 billion yuan, accounting for 52.7% of the city's above-scale industrial output value; within this, the new-energy battery and materials industry recorded 23.1 billion yuan of above-scale output value, 38.4% of the provincial total and firmly first in the province. Six new above-scale new-type functional materials enterprises were added, bringing the total to 85, and CNGR Advanced Material was named among China's Top 500 Private Enterprises for the second consecutive year. Under the "refined development of rich mineral resources" initiative, 50 million tons of new manganese resources were explored, total resources exceeded 800 million tons, and related industries achieved 25.45 billion yuan of above-scale output value. In characteristic industries, high-standard matcha bases expanded to 60,000 mu, output exceeded 1,200 tons, and both production and sales ranked first nationally; "dual-high" sweet potato planting exceeded 100,000 mu, and sales of Jialijia's "Chenshu" starch noodles grew 108.5%. Among main products, ferroalloys reached 230,200 tons, up 23.5%; electricity generation 10.835 billion kWh, up 43.6%; refined tea 8,534.01 tons; raw manganese ore 90,500 tons, down 79.7%. Above-scale industrial enterprises' operating revenue was 40.67 billion yuan, down 1.2%.

Tongren has relatively the most concentrated industrial robot applications among Guizhou's outlying prefectures and cities, mainly at battery-materials enterprises in the Dalong Economic Development Zone. The Tongren industrial base of CNGR Advanced Material Co., Ltd. has built ternary precursor production lines with a capacity of over 100,000 tons; inside the park, smart AGVs transfer materials precisely, robotic arms work at operating stations, and intelligent automated production equipment runs continuously, with on-site conditions of every production line consolidated by a multi-scenario AI monitoring and recognition system in the intelligent control center. The company lists "digital operations" as one of its core strategies: it retrofits existing workshops and equipment for smart, digital operation, adopts internationally advanced process technologies and equipment for new projects, and introduces 5G + industrial internet and other IT, automated robots and unmanned driving equipment; its shipments of ternary precursors and cobalt tetroxide have ranked first globally for several consecutive years. In 2024 the new-materials cluster in the Dalong ETDZ exceeded 20 billion yuan in output value, gathering 17 affiliated enterprises with annual revenue above 100 million yuan, including Hongxing Development Dalong Manganese Industry, CNGR, Huicheng New Materials, Nengkuang Manganese Industry, Zhongke Xingcheng and Guizhou Kaijin. In agricultural product processing, Guiten Group built the "world matcha super factory" in Jiangkou, exporting to more than 30 countries and regions; Guifu Fungal Industry's smart mushroom houses automatically control more than 10 parameters — temperature, humidity, oxygen, CO2 concentration and light — with "in-your-palm" monitoring, producing 250,000 bags of deer-antler mushrooms a day, with annual fresh mushroom output of up to 36,000 tons. No public statistics are available for the city's industrial robot stock, annual new installations or robot density (to be verified).