China's economic report for the first half of 2026 has been released. The question on everyone's mind is: which industrial sectors have been the primary drivers of growth? The answer lies in two key areas: equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing. During this period, products like 3D printing equipment and lithium-ion batteries have seen a global surge in orders, leaving factories struggling to keep up with demand.

Consumer-grade 3D Printers: China Holds 90% of Global Market Share, with Production and Exports Both Soaring

A technology company in Shenzhen spent 240 days and invested millions of yuan to create a full-house 3D-printed showroom. All 2,000-plus soft furnishings inside were printed in-house, from small lampshades and decorations to 1.8-meter-long sofas. The process uses various materials such as resin, ceramics, and titanium alloy, proving that 3D printing has long since moved beyond being a mere "handmade toy" and now covers everything from custom home decor to industrial precision machining.

Currently, one production line at this factory, staffed by over 30 workers, can assemble a machine every two minutes. With day and night shifts alternating, the daily capacity reaches 800 units. The company operates nearly 20 such production lines. However, even with workers putting in overtime, supply still cannot keep up with demand. Orders for the entire year are already fully booked, with a 30% year-on-year increase. The company is accelerating its expansion to meet the surging global demand.

Leveraging Shenzhen's mature electronics supply chain, Chinese companies have reduced the cost of industrial 3D printing equipment, which was once hundreds of thousands of yuan per unit, to a fraction of that. By pairing this with AI-powered one-click modeling, which simplifies the operation process, consumer-grade 3D printers have rapidly penetrated the market.

In the first half of 2026, domestic production of consumer-grade 3D printing equipment grew by 48.5% year-on-year. From January to May, exports reached 2.94 million units, a 90% increase, with an export value of 7.82 billion yuan, up 106.8%. China firmly holds 90% of the global consumer-grade 3D printing market.

Energy Storage Lithium Batteries: AI Computing Drives Core Demand, Orders Surge 30-Fold in First Half of Year

A battery factory in Huizhou is experiencing even more intense activity than the 3D printing sector. The head of research and development stated that production in the first half of the year was "so busy it was smoking." On the day of the interview, the company received an urgent order worth hundreds of millions of yuan, requiring the immediate delivery of over 8,000 sets of energy storage battery packs. The company's energy storage battery orders surged 30-fold in the first half of the year, a level of market demand that a 15-year veteran employee had never seen before.

The core driving force behind the explosion in the energy storage industry is the rapid global expansion of AI computing power. Data centers used for training and running large models consume enormous amounts of electricity. A power outage can easily cause computing interruptions and hardware damage, making millisecond-level backup power storage a necessity for computing power facilities. Furthermore, the power load of AI server rooms fluctuates dramatically, and energy storage systems can smoothly regulate the grid load, making them an essential and stable foundation for new computing infrastructure.

A company executive stated that during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, total investment in the energy industry is expected to reach 20 trillion yuan, with new energy storage and computing-power coordination being key development directions. Leveraging the "East Data, West Computing" project, green power bases in Northwest China, equipped with energy storage devices, can directly export computing resources, providing broad long-term growth prospects for the energy storage industry.

In the first half of 2026, national lithium-ion battery production increased by 39.3% year-on-year, and the shipment volume of energy storage batteries grew by over 80%. National plans have set a target of 300 million kilowatts of new energy storage installed capacity by 2030, a doubling from the 136 million kilowatts installed by the end of 2025. For the first time, "computing-power coordination" has been included in a government work report, indicating a unified approach to planning computing and power. This ensures strong certainty for the long-term demand in the energy storage sector.

Industry has not only stabilized the economic foundation but has also become the primary force driving economic growth. The added value of the equipment manufacturing and high-tech manufacturing sectors grew by 9.3% and 13.3%, respectively. The contribution rate of new growth drivers to the growth of industrial enterprises above a designated size reached 47.9%, an increase of 12 percentage points from the previous year. This indicates that the industrial structure is accelerating its shift towards innovation. The production boom and overflowing overseas orders for high-tech products like 3D printing equipment and lithium batteries are a vivid illustration of this trend.