China’s machine tool industry has ranked first in global output value for 18 consecutive years, with the entire industry’s revenue exceeding 1.1 trillion yuan in 2023. However, the high-end CNC machine tool sector still faces severe structural contradictions. Data from the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology shows that the localization rate of high-end CNC machine tools in China is only 6%. Among them, the import dependency rate for five-axis simultaneous
CNC machine tools is as high as 95%, and there is a significant shortage of domestic supply of such equipment in critical fields such as complex curved surface processing for aerospace and manufacturing of main pump impellers for nuclear power plants.
This dilemma stems from a (gap) in core technology accumulation. International giants have long monopolized the CNC system market, with their products accounting for more than 90% of China’s high-end market share. Taking five-axis simultaneous technology as an example, domestic NC systems still have generational gaps in key technical indicators such as dynamic error compensation and thermal deformation control. More critically, the import proportion of core transmission components such as high-end ball screws and torque motors exceeds 85%.
The industry still faces multiple bottlenecks in its breakthrough efforts. According to the
Guidelines for Talent Development in the Manufacturing Industry issued by the Ministry of Education, there is a shortage of 480,000 senior technicians in China’s high-end
CNC machine tool field, especially compound talents proficient in multi-axis simultaneous programming and error compensation algorithms. In addition, the problem of insufficient coordination in the functional component industry chain is prominent: the adaptation and verification cycle for domestic NC systems is as long as 6-8 months, three times longer than that of imported systems.
However, with the 5 billion yuan capital injection of the second phase of the Industrial Mother Machine Industry Investment Fund and the construction of CNC machine tool pilot verification platforms in cities like Shanghai and Chongqing, the industry ecosystem is accelerating its improvement. Data from the 2024 China International Machine Tool Show (CIMT) shows that the number of domestic five-axis machine tools on display increased by 67% compared with the previous session, indicating that the domestic substitution process has entered a stage of substantive breakthrough.
