Since 2026, the foundry industry has made remarkable progress in intelligent manufacturing, green initiatives, and industrial upgrading. New technologies such as giga-casting and 3D printing are accelerating the traditional foundry industry’s transition toward precision manufacturing. From automotive core components to large castings, and from smart coastal factories to inland foundry bases, China’s casting industry is embracing a new wave of technological transformation.
🏭 Smart Foundry: From “Experience” to “Data-Driven”
In Nan’an, Quanzhou, the world’s first万吨-level 3D printing full-process smart foundry factory is redefining traditional casting. Built by KOCEL Group as the National Intelligent Foundry Industry Innovation Center, this facility compresses the traditional mold-making process — which used to take over a month — to within 12 hours, with only 5 employees required for the entire production line. Its annual capacity exceeds 10,000 metric tons, with both core equipment and industrial software fully domestically developed.
A factory representative shared that a local company had received an urgent order from a German client. Traditional mold-making would have taken at least a month, making the deadline impossible. After KOCEL Quanzhou Center stepped in, the entire process from order to finished product was completed in just 7 days. “Not only did we meet the delivery deadline, but we also optimized the product structure through digital modeling, achieving lightweighting — the client was extremely satisfied.”
In Xiangshan, Ningbo Huizhen Technology focuses on “oxygen-free casting,” offering a new approach for aluminum alloy castings. In traditional casting, metal reacts with oxygen, leading to defects such as porosity and slag inclusions. Huizhen’s technology performs casting in a “vacuum chamber,” achieving metal recovery rates of 80%–95%, and allows complex thin-wall castings to be formed in a single step, with efficiency over 30% higher than traditional equipment. Its products have entered the supply chains of major OEMs including Changan Auto and Seres.
🚗 Giga-Casting: A Key Move in Commercial Vehicle Lightweighting
FAW Foundry’s “Integrated Casting Axle Housing Smart Production Line” officially went into operation this July. It uses mature green sand integrated casting technology, supported by fully automated core-making and intelligent grinding processes. The integrated casting axle housings produced on this line achieve 10%–20% weight reduction Et 10%–15% overall cost reduction, gradually replacing traditional welded structures.
Yang Zekun, Chairman of FAW Foundry, stated that this production line will “ensure stable delivery through scale production capacity, and build trust through full-process rigorous quality control.” The company will continue to deepen its expertise in precision manufacturing to support the industry’s high-quality transformation.
📈 Industry Events and Regional Clusters
The 24th China International Foundry Expo was held in Shanghai this May, alongside the 22nd China Foundry Association Annual Conference. Notable exhibits included LK Group’s 95-ton large machine tool casting and Sinosteel Xingtai’s 60-ton roll, while intelligent equipment from Unitree Robotics and Qianjiang Robotics also debuted at the show.
Regional clustering effects are also evident. Shiyan City’s casting capacity has exceeded 121,000 tons, with the local foundry industry’s output value surpassing 10 billion yuan, of which automotive castings account for over 85%, ranking first in Hubei Province’s automotive parts sector.
Ningbo LK Intelligent Casting Research Institute, with a total investment of 180 million yuan, completed its main structure in July this year and will focus on R&D for new energy vehicle die-casting. Beilun District, known as the “Hometown of China’s Die-Casting Molds,” hosts nearly half of the industry’s top 20 companies nationwide, with significant supply chain integration advantages.
Fast’s casting division integrates five major processes — lost foam casting, high-pressure die-casting, low-pressure casting, static casting, and casting 3D printing — with an annual casting output of 80,000 tons, and has been recognized as a “China Foundry Industry Competitiveness Leading Enterprise.”
From a 10,000-ton 3D printing smart foundry to oxygen-free casting, from mass-produced integrated casting axle housings to the launch of ultra-large die-casting machines, these milestones all point in a clear direction: the thousand-year-old craft of casting is being redefined by the wave of smart and green manufacturing.