Hubai's industrial added value above designated size grew 8.9% year-on-year in the first half of this year, surpassing the national average. From optoelectronics to specialty steel, from century-old factories to emerging startups, how is digital technology transforming every step of the industrial process? And how is intelligent manufacturing unlocking new productive forces in this industrial powerhouse?

At FiberHome Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd. (Wuhan)'s optical cable digital manufacturing park, reporters observed multiple varieties of communication optical cables continuously rolling off the production line. Zhang Chenglong, General Manager of the FiberHome Manufacturing Center, stated: "Traditional manufacturing relied entirely on manual material searching, resulting in heavy handling workloads. Through digital and intelligent transformation, we have achieved data connectivity across the entire production supply chain." By establishing a "5G+Industrial Internet" platform, the company has equipped all processes—from optical preform manufacturing and fiber drawing to cable forming—with "data eyes." Utilizing operations optimization algorithms, it has achieved intelligent material allocation and flexible order scheduling, reducing product delivery cycles by 30%.

While improving efficiency, intelligent manufacturing is also penetrating core production processes. Recently, FiberHome successfully developed the world's largest optical fiber preform, setting a new industry record. Song Wenjin, CCTV reporter, explained: "This is currently the world's largest optical fiber preform. It has a diameter of 0.3 meters and an effective length of 3.5 meters. A single preform like this can produce 20,000 kilometers of optical fiber." The company's self-developed flame intelligent algorithm can monitor flame angle, root distance, and color temperature changes in real-time during preform production. It automatically adjusts process parameters, proactively eliminating potential production anomalies and significantly improving product yield rates.

Xie Kang, General Manager of FiberHome Wuhan Fiberhome Ruituo Technology Co., Ltd., noted: "In the past, we relied on manual inspections to detect anomalies. With AI recognition, we can identify issues in the production process much faster and earlier, thereby improving overall manufacturing efficiency and quality." The company has now built a digital quality control platform covering the entire product lifecycle. The yield rates of optical fiber preforms and optical fibers remain at industry-leading levels, with orders already scheduled through next year. Simultaneously, the company is feeding the full-process data from optical fiber and cable R&D and production into industry-specific large models, distilling it into high-quality industry datasets to provide replicable practical experience for emerging industries like optoelectronics.

Wu Ping, General Manager of FiberHome's Operations Management Department, added: "We possess a complete set of processes from preform manufacturing to fiber drawing and cable formation. We have also accumulated over 20 years of manufacturing process data. Additionally, we have a dedicated big data company and underlying computing power. By integrating all three, we aim to become a comprehensive intelligent manufacturing solution provider for the optical fiber and cable industry."


AI Empowers a Century-Old Steel Company to Forge a New Path

In Huangshi, Hubai, Daye Special Steel Co., Ltd. has built the world's first full-process industrial internet platform for the steel pipe industry. AI and digital technologies are deeply embedded into the production line, driving the continuous advancement of flexible manufacturing capabilities for specialty seamless steel pipes.

At the digital intelligence center of Daye Special Steel's 460 steel pipe plant, tens of thousands of data points refresh in real-time on a large screen. A digital twin system controls the entire production line's operation with millisecond-level precision. The traditional model of large-volume, standardized production is gradually fading, giving way to customized production featuring multiple varieties, small batches, and high precision. In the 460 plant, the production line completes a process switch every half hour on average, adjusting full production parameters for orders from around the world.

Ma Jinhui, Director of the Quality Assurance Department at the Research Institute of Daye Special Steel Co., Ltd., explained: "Here you can see a contract list. In the contracts awaiting production, you can see the number of pipes per order. In traditional steel production, managing a production schedule for an order of just a few pipes is very difficult." To solve this challenge, the company invested nearly 1 billion yuan in full-process digital and intelligent transformation, making the 460 plant one of the first batch of national-level intelligent factories in the domestic special steel industry. By leveraging its independently built integrated industrial internet platform, the factory has converted the practical experience of several generations of rolling mill technicians into automatically executable data and imported it into an AI large model.

Previously, it took a scheduler over half a day to compile a weekly production plan. Now, the system can generate an optimal plan in minutes, reducing the waiting time for changeovers between steel types and specifications by 70%. The benefits of digital intelligence extend beyond efficiency gains. In the past, after pipes were produced, workers had to manually measure them with micrometers and perform batch sampling, making it difficult to cover all potential defects. Now, each pipe leaves behind over 20,000 production data points from billet entry to finished product warehousing, effectively creating a unique "digital growth diary" for every pipe. Each pipe is also marked with an exclusive digital "ID."

Tang Ke, Plant Manager of Daye Special Steel's 460 plant, stated: "We now have monitoring for every single pipe. It automatically accumulates and collects optimal parameters and data to standardize the entire process workflow and reduce deviations." In the first quarter of this year, the company's supply capacity for high-end specialty products continued to climb, with high-grade product output increasing 8.5% year-on-year and 370 new special steel varieties developed. The shift is from competing in homogeneous ordinary steel products to the new track of domestic substitution for high-end specialty steel.


Ecological Synergy: AI+Manufacturing Fuels New Productive Forces Across the Board

As the "AI+" initiative deepens, intelligent manufacturing is not only boosting efficiency and quality for manufacturing enterprises in Hubai but also spawning an entirely new track: industrial intelligent services. In Wuhan, Hubai, at the production scheduling center of an industrial intelligent solution provider, a vertical large model for the semiconductor industry is running at high speed. The screen displays real-time production line data from nearly a hundred partner manufacturing companies inside and outside the province. Relying on a full-chain digital diagnostic and intelligent transformation service, the company experienced rapid order growth in the first half of this year, with output value increasing by over 10% year-on-year.

Liu Liang, R&D Director of the EAS Semiconductor Division at GeChuang Dongzhi (FII), commented: "In the past, many factories were weak in automation and intelligence. We are empowering these enterprises. We provide a full closed-loop solution, from consulting and solutions to final implementation and delivery, helping them enhance their industrial capabilities." In the first half of this year, local authorities issued the "Hubai Province AI+Manufacturing Special Action Implementation Plan." This establishes a full-chain policy support system covering dimensions such as computing power base construction, application scenario opening, and high-end talent introduction. It supports collaborative research between local AI service companies and manufacturing enterprises, turning production workshops into "testing grounds" and "implementation sites" for AI technology, allowing the technology to iterate and mature by solving real production problems.

Meanwhile, addressing the common challenge faced by numerous small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises—"unwilling or unable to transform"—Hubai is building a provincial public service platform. By integrating technical resources from universities, research institutions, and AI companies, it is introducing lightweight, low-cost intelligent transformation solutions, continuously lowering the barrier to transformation. As future industries like the low-altitude economy and humanoid robots accelerate their deployment, the region is also continuously opening up channels to connect AI technology with emerging industrial scenarios.

Zhou Xiao, Deputy Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Big Data Industry Division of the Hubai Provincial Department of Economy and Information Technology, stated: "We are building a provincial-level computing power interconnection platform, as well as a provincial-level intelligent agent public service platform. This will provide a one-stop public service for manufacturing enterprises across the province, covering data, algorithms, computing power, models, and intelligent agents. This will provide strong momentum for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, the growth and expansion of emerging industries, and the forward-looking layout of future industries." Looking towards the 15th Five-Year Plan period, Hubai will continue to implement the "AI Scenario Opening Action," regularly releasing over 100 exemplary AI application demonstration projects annually. This will promote the deep integration of AI technology into thousands of industries, injecting new momentum into the industrial highlands of central China.