Zigong · Industrial Robot Technology Services

Zigong was established as a city in 1939 because of salt, and in the early years of the People’s Republic its industry was dominated by salt production. The state-owned Xinhua Salt Factory was formed in 1950, and in 1952 seven new state-owned factories were built in brick and tile, printing, electric power, machinery and other fields. In 1958 the city set out to “build a chemical industrial city”, constructing the Honghe Chemical Plant, the Zhangjiaba Salt Chemical Plant, a carbon black plant and others, achieving its first industrial structural adjustment. During the Third Front construction of 1965–1966, some 21–22 enterprises and institutions — the Dongfang Boiler Factory, the Long March Machine Tool Factory, the Zigong Cemented Carbide Factory, the Dongxin Electric Carbon Factory, the High-Pressure Valve Factory, the Zigong Welding Rod Factory, the Chenguang Institute of Chemical Research, the Carbon Black Industry Research and Design Institute and the Sichuan Flat Glass Factory — relocated inland to Zigong from Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, the Northeast and elsewhere, while 15 supporting enterprises built locally including a high-pressure vessel plant, a standard parts plant and Radio Plants No. 1 to No. 4 were established to match, taking in more than 260,000 relocated employees and their family members. The Long March Machine Tool Factory was completed and began production in 1966; the cemented carbide plant started trial production in 1969 and full production in October 1970; and the Dongfang Boiler Factory began production in 1970. In 1966 the city’s machinery industry output value was 2.5 times its 1964 level, and from 1975 machinery became the leading industrial force, forming the three pillars of salt, chemicals and machinery. In 1978 and 1983, Rongxian and Fushun counties were transferred in from Neijiang and Yibin respectively, forming the present pattern of four districts and two counties. Affected by structural and institutional factors, industrial economic indicators recorded negative growth for the first time in 1999.

In 2025, Zigong’s GDP reached 200.366 billion yuan, up 6.9%; above-scale industrial value added grew 14.6%, with a product sales rate of 96.3%. Among 35 major industrial categories, 26 posted value-added growth, led by oil and natural gas extraction (up 96.2%), railway, shipbuilding, aerospace and other transport equipment manufacturing (68.7%) and automobile manufacturing (66.6%); the fastest-growing products were lithium-ion batteries, feed and conveying machinery. Secondary-industry investment grew 8.6%. In the Zigong high-tech zone, 2025 GDP reached 34.420 billion yuan, up 7.3%; above-scale industrial value added grew 13.2%; the zone had 113 above-scale industrial enterprises with operating revenue of 14.684 billion yuan and total profits of 1.088 billion yuan (up 40.5%); 58 specialized and innovative SMEs (including nine national-level “little giants”); and the share of strategic emerging industries in above-scale output rose to 62.1%. Its leading industries are equipment manufacturing, salt chemicals and new materials, and it is expanding into new energy (sodium-ion batteries) and drones: sodium battery projects from Xingchu Century, JiaNa Energy, Changying Precision, Tianjun Precision and Rongna New Energy have been attracted, and companies such as AVIC UAV and Tengfeng Technology are being supported.

Zigong’s automation retrofits advance along the main line of smart upgrading and digital transformation: free diagnostic assessments have been completed for all 611 above-scale industrial enterprises (100% coverage); 2,583 enterprises have been guided to move to the cloud; 446 above-scale industrial enterprises have implemented retrofits; and 4,833 5G base stations have been built. Cases are relatively concentrated in equipment manufacturing: Sichuan Atlantic Welding Materials has built a digital workshop with a digitization rate of key equipment above 80%; Sichuan Tengyang Intelligent has introduced multi-joint manipulators and welding robots and has delivered 40 automation projects for Zigao Valve, Yunji Group and others; Chuanli Technology has invested in nearly 40 robots and manipulators of various types, achieving smart cell-based production with rapid changeovers across multiple varieties and small batches; and Zigong Industrial Pump invested 12 million yuan in a CNC process upgrade, adding more than 400 units (sets) of monthly capacity. In the high-tech zone, the smart upgrading and digital transformation rate among above-scale enterprises is 81.58% (93 enterprises including Chuanli Technology have implemented retrofits), nine new provincial-level smart factories were added, and Dayu Machinery became the city’s first provincial-level advanced smart factory. On robot bodies, Sichuan’s first humanoid robot multimodal data collection and testing center has gone into operation in Zigong, and the “Zigong Shutou” No. 001 robot rolled off the line, usable for quality inspection, handling and sorting; UBTech’s “dual headquarters” project was signed in 2024 and is expected to reach an annual capacity of about 3,000 units (sets) of vocational-education robots by 2026. No authoritative statistics on Zigong’s industrial robot stock or robot density could be found through public channels (to be verified).