Abstract: Since the launch of China’s Manufacturing Powerhouse Strategy in 2015, the strategic objectives of the“ first step” have been largely achieved after a decade of systematic layout and intensive practice, marking China’s entry into a new journey of“ accelerating the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse”. Grounded in a new round of digital intelligencedriven technological revolution and the profound global industrial transformation, this paper systematically examines the multiple strategic significances of accelerating the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse in the new era. Meanwhile, the concept of a manufacturing powerhouse needs to be further clarified and extended. A manufacturing powerhouse is defined as a complex system built on digital intelligence technologies and a complete modern industrial system. It is characterized by the capacity to effectively respond to and consistently lead highquality, personalized, and green demands. It aims to achieve self-reliance in science and technology and independent control over key core technologies, and to enable core manufacturing firms to be embedded into key segments of the global value chain, thereby gradually enhancing international competitiveness and industrial discourse power. Ultimately, this system contributes to both“ quality upgrading” and“ capacity stability” in manufacturing, ensures supply-demand adaptation and value creation, and guarantees the resilience, security, and controllability of industrial and supply chains.
Recognizing the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse as a large-scale complex system, this paper clarifies that accelerating this process fundamentally depends on stimulating positive emergent effects and achieving a leap in system performance, which relies on the synergistic coupling and coordinated traction of key factors. Innovation, as the core variable shaping the entire evolution of the manufacturing system, constitutes the underlying logic and core driver of accelerating the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse in the new era. Accordingly, this paper emphasizes the necessity of a co-evolutionary mechanism between the upgrading of firms’ technological capabilities and the dynamic adjustment of national industrial strategies. In this regard, Chinese-style innovation establishes the trinity support system of “technological foundation, industrial foundation, and institutional foundation”, consolidating the underlying logic for building a manufacturing powerhouse.
Finally, drawing on the complex adaptive systems approach, this paper argues that accelerating the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse must be paved by enhancing the effectiveness of multiple innovation governance mechanisms, including adaptive technological upgrading of enterprises, full-chain innovation incentives, talent cultivation and financial market development, the development of soft institutions for innovation culture, the exploration of new“ digital + intelligent” industrial forms, and green technological breakthroughs. This paper provides theoretical insights into accelerating the construction of a manufacturing powerhouse in the digital intelligence era, and offers targeted and heuristic guidance for the strategic implementation of the second decade of building a manufacturing powerhouse.
Keywords: digital intelligence era; manufacturing powerhouse; complex systems; Chinese-style innovation; innovation governance
JEL Classification: L60; O14; O38
Source: China Industrial Economics, No.2, 2026
