Media Spotlight: 21st Century Economic Report Highlights Zoomlion's Robotic Exc

August 20,2026

Recently, "21st Century Economic Report" published a special report titled "Hunan Robots Can Now Build Excavators | Vital China Research Tour," showcasing Zoomlion's active construction of a third growth curve, systematically deploying around the full industry chain of embodied intelligence, and achieving breakthroughs in humanoid robot bodies, core components, and industrial applications. Here is the full text.

▲ "21st Century Economic Report" on Zoomlion

Report by Zheng Wei, 21st Century Economic Report, Changsha

Stamping, machining, logistics, assembly, quality inspection... Recently, on Zoomlion's intelligent production line, dozens of humanoid robots have already started working.

On August 11th, following the "Vital China Research Tour" themed interview activity, the reporter from 21st Century Economic Report visited the leading enterprise in Hunan's construction machinery field: Zoomlion. Zoomlion's main business includes construction machinery, mining machinery, and agricultural machinery, with operations spanning over 170 countries worldwide and has been listed among the top 50 global construction machinery manufacturers for several consecutive years.

Currently, in the fully automated factory built by Zoomlion, an excavator rolls off the production line every 6 minutes, a high-altitude work machine every 7.5 minutes, a truck crane every 18 minutes, and a boom pump truck every 27 minutes. In 2025, Zoomlion achieved a revenue of 52.107 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.58%.

▲ Excavators and other products produced by Zoomlion, photographed by Zheng Wei

Now, this leading enterprise, which started with high-end equipment, is working on a third growth curve in addition to crane machinery and earthmoving machinery: embodied intelligent robots.

"Zoomlion is systematically deploying around the full industry chain of embodied intelligence, achieving breakthroughs in humanoid robot bodies, core components, and industrial applications," said Zang Bing, Deputy Director of the Intelligent Manufacturing Center at Zoomlion Zhongke Yungu, during the visit to the 21st Century Economic Report. Currently, Zoomlion has launched 8 wheeled and bipedal humanoid robots and independently developed high-performance, lightweight key modules, as well as dexterous hands and controllers, which are key components.

At the same time, Zang Bing revealed that Zoomlion has arranged for dozens of robots to enter the factory production line for trial operation in logistics, assembly, machining, and quality inspection. The logistics scenario covers internal transportation, automatic loading and unloading, and pre-assembly of components. The quality inspection process relies on the robot's built-in vision-specific sensors to achieve automatic quality determination, initially demonstrating the value of humanoid robots in complex industrial scenarios.

"The humanoid robot factory will be completed and operational by the end of this year, gradually starting mass production and market sales," Zang Bing stated. Over the next five years, the company plans to deploy 1,000-2,000 embodied intelligent robots in the Zoomlion Smart Industry City, including Zoomlion's global intelligent factory, to promote in-depth collaborative work between humans and machines. After internal verification and maturity, the company will gradually export related technologies and solutions to the industry, making embodied intelligent robots and other future industries a new growth curve.

From excavators to robots, Zoomlion's continuous expansion of growth curves is also a microcosm of Hunan's manufacturing industry accelerating transformation.

At the beginning of August, when visiting and researching Zoomlion Co., Ltd. in Changsha, Hunan Provincial Party Secretary Shen Xiaoming pointed out that he hopes the enterprise will firmly grasp the laws of industrial development, layout and develop future industries in a forward-looking manner, achieve greater breakthroughs in artificial intelligence + manufacturing, embodied intelligence, intelligent construction, and cultivate more new economic growth points.

Including Zoomlion, Hunan has now gathered 5 of the top 50 global construction machinery enterprises. Among them, Changsha's construction machinery industry scale has been the first in the country for 16 consecutive years, with an industrial cluster output value of 280 billion yuan in 2025. Relying on advantageous industries such as construction machinery, Hunan's total industrial added value reached 1.61 trillion yuan in 2025, ranking 9th in the country.

How can the trillion-level cluster continue to improve in quality and upgrade? "Intelligentization" becomes the key word.

The 2026 Hunan Provincial Government Work Report clearly proposed to promote the "Artificial Intelligence +" action, implement the "Top Five"

Source : www.51cm.org

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