Zoomlion’s AI Robots Making an Excavator in Six Minutes

Chinese equipment giant Zoomlion is integrating humanoid robots into its factories, dramatically increasing production speeds for heavy machinery such as excavators, scissor lifts, and concrete pumps.

The company’s Smart City facility has the capacity to produce an excavator every six minutes, a scissor lift every 7.5 minutes, a concrete pump every 27 minutes, and a truck crane every 18 minutes.

Zoomlion is applying artificial intelligence in four main areas, including construction machinery, smart manufacturing, management, and humanoid robotics.

It described humanoid robots as its “third growth curve”, supported by its proprietary integration of hardware and software.

“With deep integration across hardware, AI models, and real-world scenarios, the company is positioning embodied intelligence as its next major growth engine,” Zoomlion said in a press release.

Since 2024, Zoomlion has been increasing its use of humanoid robots, which now handle tasks such as loading and unloading, pre-assembly, and quality checks. Zoomlion called these tasks “early productivity use cases” that lay the groundwork for broader applications.

The development of these robots is aided by a dedicated training ground with more than 100 workstations and large-scale datasets, which allows for “rapid iteration” of human-robot collaboration. 

All humanoid and industrial robots are connected to the company’s Zhongke Yungu Embodied Intelligence Platform, which integrates data, simulation, training, and software deployment in a closed loop, supported by a national supercomputing centre.

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The company said it is also developing specialised robots for other sectors, including construction, agriculture, firefighting, and mowing.

Zoomlion’s integration of AI extends beyond manufacturing. Its systems manage research and development, production, sales, service, and supply chains. 

A voice-based AI diagnostic system, for example, can identify equipment faults with more than 95 percent accuracy, providing remote troubleshooting and round-the-clock technical support.

At Zoomlion Smart City, processes such as cutting, welding, machining, painting, and assembly are fully connected to an industrial internet platform. This allows the unified management of over 100,000 types of materials and the intelligent manufacturing of more than 400 products.

The company said AI-driven scheduling and optimisation have enabled what it described as a “breakthrough in large-scale, multi-variety, small-batch agile manufacturing”. 

Dozens of humanoid robots are now fully operational in its production lines, and further expansion is planned as the company pushes forward in the field of embodied intelligence.

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