As the milling cutter descends, a compressor core impeller is finished. Its surface gleams like a mirror, with precision held to 0.003 millimeters, less than one-twentieth the diameter of a human hair.
"Looking at this machine tool, with its CNC system and precision swivel head entirely developed in China, I think back to how things were more than a decade ago," said Dong Mingzhu, chairperson of Gree Electric Appliances, in an interview with People's Daily Online.
"High-end machine tools were all imported. We clutched our purchase orders and waited in line for delivery," she added. "When equipment broke down, we had to wait for overseas experts to come and adjust it on site, and every day they were late meant another day the entire production line stood idle."
The domestically produced machine tool running at high speed here is a concrete example of China's machine tool sector moving from imports to self-reliance. Gree's breakthrough was not the work of a single company, but the result of an industrial ecosystem cultivated by an entire city.
In recent years, Zhuhai has built on its position in the equipment manufacturing belt on the west bank of the Pearl River. Leveraging its industrial foundations in home appliances and new energy, the city has forged a differentiated development path for industrial machine tools, characterized by growth led by major enterprises, high-end domestic substitution, deep scenario adaptation and precise policy support. Breakthroughs in high-end equipment are accelerating, and the industrial ecosystem continues to improve.
As early as 2015, Gree committed to a comprehensive R&D push into high-end industrial machine tools, including five-axis CNC machines, and other intelligent equipment such as industrial robots.
"Many people advised us to simply buy mature equipment, citing the high investment, long cycles and significant risks of self-development. But we have always firmly believed that core technologies cannot be begged for or traded for. No matter how difficult the hurdles, we must overcome them through our own efforts," Dong said.
"The R&D journey was fraught with challenges. Working on critical components, our CNC machine tool engineers spent long stretches on the workshop floor, repeatedly fine-tuning parameters and producing trial samples. Scrapped workpieces filled entire warehouses. In the end, we launched a fully self-developed simultaneous five-axis CNC machine tool, freeing ourselves from dependence on foreign equipment," Dong recalled.
"Now we have, with our own efforts, broken free from the stranglehold," Dong said. Gree's self-developed industrial machine tools have been deployed across multiple manufacturing sectors. Its high-speed dual five-axis gantry machining center, specially designed for machining integrated die-cast structural components for complete vehicles, delivers an 80 percent improvement in processing efficiency over conventional equipment and has been supplied in volume to multiple new energy vehicle manufacturers.
Its five-axis machining equipment for precision components used in intelligent robots matches the performance of top-tier international products while significantly reducing procurement costs.
Meanwhile, related core achievements have won gold awards at international invention exhibitions. Gree's Jinwan plant was selected as one of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's first batch of pilot-level smart factories, providing solid support for the upgrading of equipment manufacturing on the west bank of the Pearl River.
Looking ahead, Dong said Gree will continue to deepen technological iteration in industrial machine tools and intelligent equipment, refining products in close alignment with real production needs.
The company will work with partners across the industrial chain to fill equipment gaps in niche segments and use independently developed high-end manufacturing equipment to lay a firm foundation for the steady growth of China's emerging industries.
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