GUANGZHOU, March 17 (Xinhua) -- On the first day back after the Chinese New Year holiday in February, a company in Dongguan, south China's Guangdong Province, swapped the traditional post-holiday ritual of firecrackers and lion dances for a high-tech spectacle. GuangLiang holdings group surprised its employees with a shower of "hongbao" -- traditional red envelopes containing lucky money -- delivered by drones.

All the group's more than 500 technical staff were back on the job that day, each with an average of three projects already in hand -- a sign of a strong start to the business year.

Long known as the "world's factory," Dongguan is home to more than 220,000 industrial enterprises. The city not only boasts industrial clusters such as electronic information and high-end equipment manufacturing, but also nurtures numerous "hidden champions" deeply rooted in their niche sectors.

GuangLiang, which began with geographic surveying and mapping, has leveraged its data advantages to develop two new business segments: "artificial intelligence (AI) plus" and "low-altitude economy plus."

"With the government driving the commercialization of application scenarios this year, the time is right for us to make our big move," said Liu Xianqing, vice president of the group. The company is stepping up its efforts to develop low-altitude instant-delivery use cases.

China's government work report this year has, for the first time, stressed the need to create "new forms of smart economy" and to continue deepening and expanding the "AI plus" initiative. It calls for the faster adoption of new-generation intelligent terminals and AI agents, large-scale commercial applications of AI in key sectors and fields, and the cultivation of new forms and models of AI-native business.

"The introduction of this new concept is essentially about seizing the opportunities unlocked by AI," said Chen Changsheng, a member of the drafting group of the government work report. "It aims to expand AI's empowerment across sectors for new economic space and new growth drivers."

China will also move to boost six emerging pillar industries this year, namely integrated circuits, aerospace, biomedicine, the low-altitude economy, new-type energy storage, and intelligent robots. These sectors, with a combined value of nearly 6 trillion yuan (about 870 billion U.S. dollars) last year, are expected to surpass 10 trillion yuan in 2030, according to Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Driven by national top-level strategies and supported by local governments, Chinese enterprises are actively exploring new pathways to break down industrial barriers, reshape the manufacturing landscape, and show sound growth momentum.

North China's Hebei Province is currently intensifying its implementation of the "AI plus" action plan, focusing on launching innovative application scenarios in 15 industries, including steel, chemicals, and medicine and healthcare, according to the provincial development and reform commission.

Hansteel Company under HBIS Group Co., Ltd., a steel enterprise located in Hebei, has deployed an intelligent system integrating industrial vision and large models at its high-end automotive sheet workshop, capturing microscopic defects on the steel surface at millisecond speed. "Since the large model was deployed, the defect detection rate for automotive sheets has soared to over 99.9 percent," said Wu Zhijie, a technician at the company.

The AI model does more than just "see"; it also "thinks." It autonomously builds a quality-traceability tree, precisely feeding anomalies back into upstream processes. The company has now implemented 83 intelligent decision-making and control scenarios, creating an end-to-end intelligent large model that covers six key areas, from production and energy control to R&D.

Data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology showed that China's manufacturing sector is making solid progress in its digital and intelligent transformation, having built over 35,000 entry-level, 8,200 advanced-level, 500 excellence-level, and 15 pioneering-level smart factories to date.

In Dongguan, the impact of this national push for industrial upgrading is already etched into the city's economic data. Despite global market volatility and contracting demand, Dongguan's manufacturing sector demonstrated strong resilience in 2025, with the total output value of its major industrial enterprises exceeding 2.6 trillion yuan.

Shini Plastics Technologies, Inc., a Dongguan-based plastic auxiliary machinery manufacturer, has secured sufficient orders in 2026 and has been working at full capacity to meet delivery schedules since operations resumed after the holiday.

"Our goal this year is to achieve 15 percent revenue growth. In addition to traditional consumer electronics, we expect further growth from our new equipment for cooling systems in new energy vehicles and AI servers," said Wu Junrui, general manager of the company. "Moving forward, we also plan to enter the low-altitude economy and humanoid robotics sectors, developing more products tailored to new consumer demands."

Another company experiencing a post-holiday surge is Dongguan Finecables Co., Ltd., which has secured nearly 10 million yuan in overseas orders, with production scheduled through June. "Our 2025 performance hit a three-year high. This year, we expect growth to come from new sectors like medical and the low-altitude economy," said Zhu Yunfeng, the company's domestic business director.

Noting the accelerating pace of renewal and iteration across industries, Zhu emphasized that the key lies in continuously developing higher-performance products that meet evolving market needs. "Products for the low-altitude economy, for example, require connectors that are lightweight, waterproof and stable," she said. "Not all of our engineers are working on projects with orders in hand, and we are also building up our technology reserves."

The urgency of technological innovation is particularly evident at Xinbo Technology (Dongguan) Co., Ltd., where a team of top researchers is racing against time -- and against competitors -- to solve bottlenecks that could define the next phase of growth.

The company provides plasma-based surface technology solutions, serving Dongguan's vast manufacturing community. According to its head, Tian Xiubo, demand was so high that he once received up to seven client groups in a single day during his busiest periods.

"I believe this busy schedule reflects a growing trend: more and more companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, are striving to seize new business opportunities through innovative applications and breakthrough transformations," Tian said. ■