To keep pace with trends in smart manufacturing and lead the high-quality development of China's smart manufacturing sector, the nomination and selection process for the "2026 China Smart Manufacturing Scientific and Technological Advances" has recently been officially launched. The selections for this initiative will be made through recommendations from the 15 member societies of the China Association for Science and Technology's Smart Manufacturing Consortium and experts from the Consortium's Expert Committee. Following two rounds of evaluation-a preliminary review and a final review-the "Top Ten Scientific and Technological Advances in China's Smart Manufacturing for 2026" will be selected. The selected achievements will be officially announced at the World Intelligent Manufacturing Conference in November 2026 and will be prominently featured as the Consortium's major research achievements for 2026. As a member of the CAST Intelligent Manufacturing Consortium, the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence (CAAI) cordially invites all its branches, institutional members, and individual members to actively participate. The submission period for nomination materials runs from June 24 to September 10, 2026.

Smart manufacturing is a comprehensive system that spans all stages of the manufacturing lifecycle-including products, production, and services-and, supported by the Industrial Internet and cloud platforms, integrates these stages into a smart integrated manufacturing system. Therefore, smart manufacturing primarily consists of three major functional systems-smart products, smart production, and smart services-as well as two supporting systems: the smart manufacturing cloud and the Industrial Internet.

The starting point and ultimate goal of smart manufacturing are to achieve rapid resource integration, autonomous sensing, intelligent interconnection, intelligent learning and analysis, intelligent decision-making, and intelligent execution in the manufacturing process-that is, to realize the optimized development of the manufacturing industry. Smart Manufacturing Technologies: Focusing on key technologies and enabling technologies, including cross-disciplinary technologies that integrate advanced manufacturing technologies with next-generation information technologies; sensing and control technologies, advanced design technologies, fault diagnosis and condition-based maintenance technologies, digital twin technologies, industrial software, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, industrial big data, industrial control security technologies, and smart manufacturing standards. Emphasis is placed on how advancements in smart manufacturing technologies enhance the digitalization, intelligence, and efficiency of smart manufacturing equipment, production, and services, as well as smart manufacturing solutions in the manufacturing sector.

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