Forward Design Platform for Machine Tools Debuts in Shanghai; 2025 Revenue Exceeds RMB 1 Trillion

Machine tools are foundational equipment supporting modern manufacturing, and their technical level reflects the development height of an industrial system. As an important component of machine tools, domestic high-end CNC machine tools are moving from "reverse imitation" into a new stage of "independent forward design." On April 21, 2026, during the 14th China CNC Machine Tool Exhibition, the Forward Design Platform for Machine Tools was launched in Shanghai. The platform fills a technological gap and marks the official entry of domestic high-end CNC machine tool research and development into the "independent forward design" stage. The "forward design" technical system for complete high-end CNC machine tool solutions developed by the Zhejiang University team is an important component of this effort.

From millimeter-level precision chip bases and complex optical lenses to aircraft engine blades and core components of aircraft carriers, almost all mechanical equipment depends on machine tool processing. CNC machine tools are known as industrial machine tools and constitute foundational manufacturing equipment at the national strategic level. China's machine tool industry has formed a relatively complete industrial system and has become the world's largest producer and seller of CNC machine tools. In 2025, revenue of enterprises above designated size in the industry exceeded RMB 1 trillion, and in the same year, China's machine tool export share in the global market rose to first place in the world for the first time. However, in designing and producing high-end machine tool products, China still lags behind world-leading levels, and the situation of "insufficient high-end capability" has not been fundamentally reversed. High-end CNC machine tools feature high performance, high reliability, and intelligence, with rapid traverse speeds reaching 60 to 200 meters per minute, machining positioning accuracy of 1 micron, and ultra-precision machining machine tools required to reach sub-micron or even nanometer levels.

For a considerable period, China's high-end CNC machine tools adopted a reverse design approach, deriving designs from physical products. CNC machine tools developed in this way can imitate appearance, structure, and dimensions, but are "similar in form but not in spirit," with notably inferior performance. In ultra-high precision machining, five-axis linkage for complex curved surfaces, and precision stability during long continuous machining, China's high-end CNC machine tools lag behind international top levels and struggle to fully meet extreme working condition requirements in aerospace, precision medical devices, and other fields. The self-sufficiency rate of core components such as high-precision CNC systems, high-speed electric spindles, precision ball screws, and linear guides remains insufficient. Based on this, the Zhejiang University team proposed a "forward design" technical system for high-end CNC machine tools.

The "forward design" technical system takes the processing requirements of complex parts as the design starting point, systematically analyzing and solving geometry, process, motion, stiffness, and precision layer by layer, then generating machine tool design solutions precisely adapted to part characteristics. Taking the adaptive design of complex curved surface geometry as an example, traditional machine tool design typically only adapts to regular planes and arc structures, while complex workpieces processed by high-end machine tools, such as engine impellers, integral blisks, and high-end molds, typically have complex geometric shapes such as free-form surfaces or irregular structures, with difficult machining characteristics including large angles, strong twisting, curvature jumps, and machining interference. The forward design of processing technology and machine tool kinematic chains abandons traditional empirical motion parameter matching models, ensuring tool motion stability under high-speed machining through rotary axis configuration pattern analysis and multi-axis motion topology design on the machine tool kinematic chain.

Based on the above technologies, the Zhejiang University team overcame technical difficulties such as complete machine "forward design" and machining precision improvement, and independently developed a digital design software tool suite for high-end CNC machine tool complete machines. Among them, process requirement intelligent analysis tools, CNC machine tool kinematic chain design tools, CNC machine tool skeleton model layout design tools, and CNC machine tool design resource libraries have been applied to key machine tool models including gantry machining centers, high-precision horizontal coordinate boring machines, and heavy-duty milling-turning composite machine tools. In January 2021, the team's project "Key Technologies and Applications of Complete Machine Design and Manufacturing Process for High-Performance Gantry Machining Centers" won the second prize of the National Technology Invention Award.

Currently, new-generation information technology represented by artificial intelligence is profoundly affecting the machine tool industry. High-end CNC machine tools are developing toward high performance, intelligence, composite capabilities, high reliability, and green development. If effective breakthroughs can be achieved in digital twin and virtual commissioning technology for high-end CNC machine tools, and generative intelligent design technology for machine tools based on spatial intelligence, they will provide support for independent design innovation of China's high-end CNC machine tools. Integrating data-driven technology and improving high-end machine tool design performance through digital twin frameworks can break through the limitations of traditional design methods. Promoting AI-empowered intelligent design of high-end CNC machine tools, through semi-physical simulation virtual commissioning technology combining real and virtual machines, enables high-fidelity commissioning and optimization of deviations between tool tip points and workpiece surfaces, reducing physical prototype trials. In machine tool design, the complex coupling relationships and implicit patterns between workpiece geometry, processing technology, machine tool spatial structure, and their dynamic and static performance have not yet been clearly revealed and quantitatively expressed.

Combining advanced generative design models and overcoming key technologies for generative intelligent design of high-end machine tools based on spatial intelligence multimodal large models is the key breakthrough point for realizing the paradigm transformation of high-end machine tool design.