Under the support of its independently innovated cluster collaborative operation technology, the unmanned paving and compaction fleet deftly coordinated to "pave the road"; the vision-language model onboard the vehicles enables the machinery not only to understand instructions but also to comprehend scenes... On March 30, at the SANY Group Technology Festival achievement exhibition held in Changsha, Hunan, stunning shows of cutting-edge construction machinery technologies such as these left visitors marveling.

"New energy, electrification, intelligence, and unmanned operation are the key technologies that will transform the future development of the equipment industry. Increasing R&D investment in related technologies is not a multiple-choice question for us, but a mandatory one," said Li Hongwei, Vice President of SANY Group and Director of the R&D Headquarters, to a reporter from Science and Technology Daily on April 8. He affirmed that SANY Group will definitely develop into an AI-native robotics company in the future.

New Situation: R&D Supports Global Development

Featuring the "Mopan" universal chassis design and integrating multiple innovative technologies such as dual-motor electric drive axles, an 800V domain control platform, full air suspension, and a 636 kWh ultra-large underfloor battery, the SANY Heavy Truck Jiangshan 636C occupied the center stage of the electrification achievement exhibition area.

In September last year, the Jiangshan 636C obtained EU whole-vehicle type approval, becoming China's first long-range electric tractor unit sold in batches to Europe. At the same time, it is also a typical case of SANY Group using new quality productive forces to drive electric heavy trucks to break through long-haul trunk-line logistics scenarios.

While breaking the industry's psychological "boundary" of range anxiety about electric heavy trucks through innovation, SANY Group has also driven rapid corporate economic growth with its pioneering electrification transformation and innovation. In 2025, the company's electrified product sales exceeded 20 billion yuan, with a market share far ahead in this field.

At the Technology Festival, SANY Group proposed the theme "Innovating Technology, Winning the Future." The success of its electrification transformation is precisely the first layer of meaning of the word "new": recognizing the new situation.

"Our overseas revenue accounts for half of total revenue, and the Group's globalization has entered an accelerated phase. Under this new situation, we must rely on sustained high-quality R&D as core support to achieve our goal of sustainable global development," said Li Hongwei.

To this end, SANY Group is actively building an efficient global R&D network, having established global R&D centers in Europe, the United States, Japan, and other places, innovation centers in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and other cities, and multiple manufacturing bases overseas. The company insists on investing 5% of annual sales revenue in R&D. Sustained R&D investment enables SANY Group to successfully develop hundreds of new products and new technology projects of various types each year.

New Trend: Launching R&D for "Intelligent Unmanned Collaboration"

A large coal mine project in Xinjiang is the first capacity contracting project attempted by SANY Intelligent Mining. The project provides an overall unmanned transport solution from SANY Intelligent Mining, as well as core intelligent systems for vehicles, control, perception, and scheduling. To date, the project has accumulated more than 220,000 kilometers of operation, transported more than 2.22 million cubic meters of earth and rock, and achieved an overall efficiency of over 90%, providing a replicable and scalable demonstration path for the intelligent transformation of mines and successfully verifying the feasibility of commercial unmanned operation.

In the "super technology window period" where the fourth industrial revolution and the third energy revolution overlap globally, SANY Group actively attempts to "embrace" all new technologies that can promote the collaborative development of intelligence and unmanned operation.

Li Hongwei introduced that existing intelligent unmanned scenarios are mainly limited to certain closed areas, and the overall collaborative efficiency of machinery still has no prominent comparative advantage over labor costs, while the safety and reliability of intelligent machinery also need improvement. "At present, the unmanned operation that can be achieved still mainly relies on rule-based algorithms rather than data-driven approaches," he said.

In the future of unmanned operation, humans will only be the planners of certain work scenarios. Within the scenario, all machinery and equipment will be interconnected and data-driven to carry out work autonomously. This is precisely the second layer of "new" meaning that SANY Group is striving for—launching R&D for "intelligent unmanned collaboration."

In addition to layouts in domestic mines, SANY Group is also actively exploring unmanned operations in multiple overseas mines, attempting layouts ranging from equipment to solutions, digital infrastructure, and full operation management systems.

New Paradigm: Data-Driven AI-Native Innovation

In 2019, SANY Group fully launched its digital transformation, spending tens of billions of yuan to upgrade traditional factories and building the industry-benchmark Changsha No. 18 Intelligent Lighthouse Factory. As of 2025, the company has built 35 intelligent/lighthouse factories worldwide (including 3 world-class lighthouse factories) and has built the equipment manufacturing industry's first 5G fully connected factory.

"In recent years, we have invested more than half of our R&D spending in the reserve and development of electrification and intelligent technologies, especially forward-looking and disruptive technology R&D that can achieve truly unmanned operation, including actively exploring future commercial application scenarios for these cutting-edge technologies," said Li Hongwei.

Through continuous technological accumulation and iteration, intelligent and unmanned technologies have been fully implemented at SANY Group. The company's self-developed unmanned loader has successfully achieved commercial operation, and the unmanned paving and compaction fleet set an industry record for continuous operation in highway construction. The Group has also successively launched remote-controlled equipment and intelligent construction tools, and built full-scenario intelligent solutions such as smart mines and smart ports.

In SANY Group's view, the unmanned development of construction machinery is an inevitable trend. However, this "major project" requires not only solving problems at the technical implementation level but also addressing the "economic applicability" of the technology: for unmanned cluster collaboration technology to move from the laboratory to commercial application, it must have an obvious cost advantage over existing manpower.

Accordingly, SANY is actively cooperating with AI companies and university research teams to jointly build a new ecosystem for unmanned cluster collaborative operation of construction machinery, explore standardized communication protocols and management models for unmanned construction machinery cluster collaboration, and attempt to create new business models such as "capacity contracting."

"We are striving to launch a new R&D paradigm for the 'new species' of AI-native construction machinery, promote the development of intelligence toward true unmanned operation, and 'evolve' the 'SANY Brain' of construction machinery," said Li Hongwei. SANY Group will actively tackle R&D challenges including algorithms and unmanned operation in complex scenarios, collect and build high-quality datasets of continuous working actions of construction machinery in different working conditions, and promote the establishment of industry standards.

Fu Weizhong, a director of SANY Group, stated that in the future, SANY Group will remain unwavering in its development strategy of "globalization, digital intelligence, and low-carbonization," and will always regard R&D innovation as the core engine of the company's sustained growth.

       Source: Science and Technology Daily