Ya'an · Industrial Robot Technology Services

Ya’an’s industry started late on a thin base: during the Republic of China era, Yucheng District had only one small hydropower station with an installed capacity of 150 kilowatts and small plants for papermaking, leather, printing and tea processing; in 1949 total industrial output value was just 3.33 million yuan, or 18.25% of combined industrial and agricultural output. The Third Front construction changed this. Between 1965 and 1970, six military-industrial enterprises under the Third Ministry of Machine Building Industry (aviation) and the Fifth Ministry of Machine Building Industry (ordnance) — State-Owned Plants 226, 291, 241, 174, 3207 and 305 — relocated wholly or in part to Ya’an from Tianjin, Shaanxi, Chongqing and elsewhere, and military-industrial enterprises such as Fanhua, Chuanxi and Jian’an settled there in succession. The State-Owned Chuanxi Machine Factory began preparation in 1965; in 1975 it successfully developed cold and hot isostatic pressing equipment in cooperation with Beihang University; in 1980 it turned to military-civilian integration and entered the civilian market; its large deep-sea ultra-high-pressure simulation test rig took part in the R&D of the Fendouzhe 10,000-meter manned submersible. In addition, the Sichuan Asbestos Mine in Shimian County, established in 1950, was one of the country’s eight major asbestos mines, and at its peak supplied 87.45% of China’s asbestos exports. Driven by Third Front construction, by 1985 the territory had 138 industrial enterprises and a total industrial output value of 240.13 million yuan.

In 2025, Ya’an’s GDP reached 113.160 billion yuan, up 5.7%; industrial value added was 31.212 billion yuan, up 6.5%, contributing 30.8% to economic growth; there were 442 above-scale industrial enterprises, and above-scale industrial value added grew 7.5%. Among 29 major industry categories, 21 posted value-added growth: computer, communications and other electronic equipment manufacturing up 35.4%, textiles 20.3%, non-metallic mineral products 14.4%, non-ferrous metal smelting and rolling 13.8%, pharmaceutical manufacturing 11.8%, and chemical raw materials and chemical products 10.3%; high-tech manufacturing value added grew 28.7%. Among major products, graphite and carbon products rose 65.7%, yarn 16.8%, copper materials 15.5%, and refined tea 2.9%. Above-scale industrial enterprises achieved operating revenue of 98.450 billion yuan, up 12.9%, and total profits of 4.294 billion yuan, up 4.4%. Under the “4+4” modern industrial system, advanced materials continue to scale up: capacity in the copper-aluminum recycling industry reached 850,000 tons, up 200,000 tons from 2024, with zinc ingot and copper processing capacity ranking first in the province; capacity of cathode and anode materials for lithium batteries reached 637,000 tons, up 8.5%; Zhongya Technology completed the country’s largest single-site formed-foil production base, and Jian’an Industrial completed Asia’s largest production and R&D base for tapered gears for light and micro vehicles. The China–Ya’an Big Data Industrial Park has 40,000 racks and 6,142P of computing power (including 4,072P of AI computing power).

Ya’an’s manufacturing base is not large, and automation retrofits center on smart upgrading and digital transformation diagnostics and single-item upgrades. The digital transformation coverage rate of above-scale industrial enterprises citywide exceeds 70%; one new provincial-level advanced smart factory was cultivated, achieving the city’s first national-level smart 5G factory; and an innovative “park + center + company + alliance” promotion model supports three major actions: “equipment andon”, “cloud factory” and “AI empowerment”. On inputs, in January–November industrial, manufacturing and technological transformation investment grew 13.4%, 8.5% and 12.3% respectively; eight projects secured 130 million yuan of ultra-long-term special treasury bond funds and three projects won 264 million yuan of special-purpose bonds, with equipment renewal the main destination. By sector, automation equipment is relatively concentrated in textiles (textile enterprises in Lushan County are already equipped with automated production equipment), non-ferrous metals and graphite electrodes, formed foil, auto parts (Jian’an Industrial’s tapered gears) and lithium battery materials (Yahua Lithium operates the world’s largest single-line lithium hydroxide production line); in traditional Chinese and Tibetan medicine and tea refining, automation consists mainly of stand-alone sorting and packaging machines. No authoritative statistics on Ya’an’s industrial robot stock, annual new installations or robot density could be found through public channels (to be verified).