When will China’s CNC lathe technology be able to replace foreign technology?

As CNC machine tool processing technology has become a booming industry in China over the past few years, and with continuous innovation in foreign CNC machine tool technologies, just how advanced is China’s own CNC machine tool processing technology? Let’s find out together, as explained by our editor from Dongguan.


As CNC machine tool processing technology has become a booming industry in China over the past few years, and with continuous innovations in foreign CNC machine tool technologies, how exactly does China’s CNC machine tool processing technology stand? Let’s find out together, as explained by our editor from Dongguan.

It’s difficult to give a precise answer to this question—after all, there are indeed a very small number of CNC-machined products that are quite good. However, overall, the CNC machine-tool manufacturing technology in mainland China hasn’t yet reached a level comparable to that of Japan or Europe and the U.S. A significant portion of domestic machine tools are actually assembled machines: we buy components from overseas and put them together to create our own CNC machine tools. So, how exactly do we use foreign technology to assemble our own machines? To shed some light on this issue, our editor specifically reached out to an engineer working in the industry and asked him to share his insights from the perspective of an actual user. Generally speaking, China’s current CNC machine tools are mainly in the mid-to-low end range and are now making strides toward the mid-to-high end. As for so-called independent R&D, most of the system components are essentially imitations of technologies that haven’t yet been replicated domestically; the mechanical parts are simply assembled using high-quality components sourced from internationally renowned brands. For the time being, China is still unable to produce such specialized, high-end CNC machine tools.