Geely and Xinwangda have built fully automated production lines for cells, modules, and power battery systems, all developed in-house. By leveraging AI algorithms, edge computing, and big data analytics, the company has transformed its manufacturing process from automation and digitization to full intelligence. Huabao Animal Husbandry deepens its 'farm-to-table' full industry chain model, promoting the integration of three industries. It has established a smart breeding base, utilizing industrial internet and intelligent management systems for efficient control, producing and selling over 100,000 tons of chicken products annually. These real-world examples vividly showcase the surging momentum of digital intelligence development in Zaozhuang. On July 23, the 'Digital Transformation, Green Future' online themed media tour officially launched. As a typical resource-based city, Zaozhuang has proactively tackled its transformation challenges by focusing on industrial reshaping, ecological renewal, and intelligent manufacturing for global markets. With digital empowerment as its core, green development as its foundation, and smart manufacturing as its driver, the city has continuously optimized and upgraded its industrial structure. It has been rated excellent six times in performance evaluations for transforming resource-exhausted cities, successfully forging a 'Zaozhuang Path' for the rebirth of an old industrial base. The media tour explored firsthand the transformation of industries, ecological restoration, and digital empowerment, offering a close-up view of Zaozhuang's determination to break through, its prowess in technological innovation, and its urban charm of green coexistence.

Transforming Traditional Industries: Revitalizing Existing Assets with Digital Intelligence

In the height of summer, the production area of Shandong Ruiwo's annual 30,000-unit (set) high-end machinery intelligent manufacturing project is bustling with activity. A batch of high-quality air compressors has already been shipped overseas, with products now reaching over 30 countries and regions, including Russia, Italy, India, and Ghana. 'Through the application of the industrial Internet of Things, we achieve interconnection of every device and real-time data collection. A fully integrated data flow builds an MES/ERP integrated platform. ERP coordinates procurement, production, and sales data across the entire chain, while MES focuses on workshop-level management, monitoring equipment status, order progress, and personnel efficiency in real time. Through data sharing, we can achieve 'production on demand,' explained Yao Degang, Deputy General Manager of Shandong Ruiwo Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., highlighting the key to the company's transformation from traditional low-end mechanical processing to high-end precision intelligent manufacturing through digital technology upgrades.

Traditional industries are the 'ballast' of the national economy and the 'basic plate' of the real economy. They support industrial growth, provide employment, stabilize foreign trade, and are a crucial foundation for building a modern industrial system. Transformation cannot happen without revitalizing existing assets. Zaozhuang has proactively embraced change, using technological upgrades, digital empowerment, and intelligent upgrades as breakthroughs. It promotes the optimization and re-engineering of the entire production, management, and R&D process to reduce costs, increase efficiency, and upgrade quality, shifting industries from extensive scale to quality and efficiency, revitalizing old industries. A city-wide 'intelligent transformation and digital upgrade' is profoundly reshaping the new landscape of Zaozhuang's industrial development. At Zaozhuang Huabao Animal Husbandry Development Co., Ltd., digital intelligence has transformed the production methods of this leading agricultural industrialization enterprise. It has built a smart breeding base, utilizing blockchain traceability and intelligent production lines, and leveraging industrial internet and intelligent management systems for efficient control. Currently, it has long-term partnerships with well-known companies like KFC and Haidilao, producing and selling 105,000 tons of chicken products annually, generating an additional 1 billion yuan in output value and 50 million yuan in taxes and profits. It connects 32 contract farms and 300 farming households, helping over 4,000 people increase their income. In Tengzhou, the city promotes the transformation of the machine tool industry from 'manufacturing' to 'intelligent manufacturing.' Companies like Shansen CNC have fully implemented automated production lines equipped with machine vision and online inspection systems, relying on digital methods to stabilize product quality, making it an important national R&D and manufacturing base for CNC machine tools. Many digital industries have also grown and developed accordingly. The refined oil big data comprehensive service platform, independently developed by Shandong Yuetai Information Technology Co., Ltd., has been officially online since May 2023. In three quarters, sales revenue grew by 790%, with tax revenue increasing by 752.13% year-on-year. It now covers over 90 private gas stations in areas like Taierzhuang, Xuecheng, and Shanting. Company technical leader Yu Dezhi stated, 'The equipment captures full refueling and inventory data in real time, eliminating false reporting. The accumulated data can also be used for asset pledge financing, turning data into operating capital. We have obtained a bank financing credit line of 10 million yuan based on data asset pledges.'

Nurturing Emerging Industries: Succeeding Development with New Energy

If digital intelligence transformation is about consolidating the foundation, emerging industries like new energy are Zaozhuang's new engine for breaking through and achieving transformation. As a national pilot city for transforming resource-exhausted cities, the key step for Zaozhuang is to cultivate successor industries. The city is making continuous efforts in emerging sectors like new energy batteries and new materials to accelerate the cultivation of new economic growth drivers. In the Geely Xinwangda production workshop, fully automated lithium battery production lines run at high speed, with robots completing cell welding and PACK packaging. The company leader explained on-site, 'We have built a 5G industrial internet intelligent manufacturing system, with massive inspection equipment strictly controlling quality. We have been recognized as a provincial specialized and new enterprise and a 'Star Factory,' and we lead the province's only lithium battery industry community. Our main product, the high-nickel ternary prismatic aluminum shell battery, is used by car brands like Geely, Lynk & Co, and Volvo, with company revenue exceeding 1.5 billion yuan in 2025.' Xieqing (Zaozhuang) Hydrogen Energy Technology Co., Ltd. focuses on the production and sales of small, air-cooled hydrogen fuel cell stacks. Li Wangyue, the company's administrative and HR supervisor, introduced that the team holds over a hundred hydrogen energy patents, with products suitable for various scenarios like hydrogen two-wheelers and mobile energy storage, filling a local gap in hydrogen energy supporting industries. Zhongke Intelligent is laying out integrated source-grid-load-storage equipment, Runtai New Materials has started the second phase of its amino-mold composite material industrial park project, Bozegerlin (Shandong) Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. has received approval for its budesonide product, and Lvtan Intelligent is developing unmanned agricultural robots in collaboration with Beihang University. A group of new energy, new material, and biomedical companies have taken root, forming a new economic growth pole, completely changing the single coal-dependent industrial structure and injecting new low-carbon development momentum into the city. Zaozhuang, once thriving on coal, now sees non-coal industries accounting for over 80% of added value, with high-tech industry output value share rising to 55.3%. Particularly, for the lithium battery industry, positioned as its 'top priority,' Zaozhuang has built a full industry chain from lithium mining to end-use applications and disassembly recycling, achieving one-stop supporting facilities for lithium battery production. The city now has 280 upstream and downstream companies in the new energy battery sector. Concurrently, Zaozhuang is planning a zero-carbon smart valley industry-city integration demonstration zone, diversifying into new tracks like solid-state batteries, perovskite solar cells, and hydrogen fuel cells. Once known as a 'century-old coal city,' it is now transforming into a 'famous Chinese new energy battery city.' This development shift is releasing new potential, expanding new space, and enabling continued ascent. In 2025, 16 of Zaozhuang's 17 major economic indicators ranked among the top 10 in the province, with six, including general public budget revenue and fixed asset investment, ranking first. GDP grew by 5.7%, exceeding the provincial average for 16 consecutive quarters. In the 2025 provincial assessment of cities, Zaozhuang ranked 4th in the province and 1st in its group.

Developing a Circular Economy: Opening Up New Development Space

At a critical juncture for comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, the traditional growth model reliant on factor input has hit its ceiling. The higher stage of transformation is no longer just about scale expansion, but about efficiency leaps and structural reshaping. Coal mining subsidence areas and abandoned mines, once considered burdens for urban development, are now being transformed into income-generating assets under a circular development mindset. Zaozhuang has innovated a new 'ecology + industry' comprehensive governance model, promoting subsidence area management and ecological restoration of abandoned mines. By the end of 2025, it has managed 105,500 mu of subsidence areas and restored over 24,000 mu of abandoned mines. Standing under the vast solar panels of the Huadian 200MW 'photovoltaic +' agricultural (fishery) complementary smart energy project, Shao Peng, Secretary of the Huadian Shandong New Energy Co., Ltd. Zaozhuang Branch and General Manager of Huadian (Tengzhou) New Energy Development Company, introduced, 'This was a subsidence area. We revitalized the resources, turning waste into treasure, and built a multi-industry integrated development system of 'power generation on the panels, aquaculture below, and cultural tourism support.' The annual photovoltaic power generation provides stable green electricity, while freshwater fish, shrimp, and crabs are also harvested in abundance. This has driven the collective income of over ten surrounding villages to increase by over 10 million yuan and provided employment for over 300 people.' In Dige Town, Yicheng District, the city rationally utilizes goaf subsidence areas from gypsum mines to develop ecological fishery, building a 5,000-square-meter 'smart greenhouse' for aquaponics. It explores the comprehensive utilization of fishery tailwater, constructing a composite farming system where fish farming and hydroponic cultivation coexist symbiotically, effectively extending the upstream chain of aquaculture. This saves over 1 million yuan in annual planting and breeding costs, produces 60,000 jin of organic vegetables, and achieves dual improvements in the ecological environment and economic benefits. There are many similar examples. Zaozhuang also dares to seek benefits from idle resources. The used car trade 'buys nationwide, sells globally,' stepping onto the international stage. Idle books circulate in a 'collect + sell + borrow' reverse flow, feeding a nationwide book recycling and sales system. The idle luxury goods trade forms a full industry chain, and second-hand clothing achieves dual circulation domestically and internationally… Circular economy opens up incremental development space. From Xuecheng's dual drive of lithium batteries and hydrogen energy, and digital intelligent upgrades by tech companies, to Taierzhuang's energy digital supervision and smart agricultural machinery innovation; from Yicheng's green chemical iteration and smart fishery ecology on subsidence lands, to the high-tech zone's power battery industry cluster; from Shanting's high-end equipment intelligent manufacturing and smart agriculture green development, to Tengzhou's agro-photovoltaic complementarity enriching the people and wetland ecological value transformation. We are pleased to see that traditional industrial and mining sites have become fertile ground for green industries, traditional low-end manufacturing has been upgraded to high-end intelligent manufacturing, and traditional energy circulation has achieved digital standardization upgrades. Vivid cases of technological breakthroughs, model innovation, and ecological value transformation are blossoming everywhere in Zaozhuang, driving the city's systematic transformation from 'resource dependence' to 'digital intelligence-driven,' and from a 'black coal city' to a 'green city.' Zaozhuang Party Secretary Zhai Jun stated that the city will anchor its overall development positioning as a 'leading city for green and low-carbon transformation and development of resource-based cities,' vigorously implement the 'strengthen industry, revitalize industry, transform and develop' strategy, concentrate on building a new energy industrial manufacturing base and a Grand Canal cultural tourism city, and promote the construction of a modern and strong city to a new level.