From barren land to smart factories: development resilience of copper industry in east China's Guixi-Xinhua
From barren land to smart factories: development resilience of copper industry in east China's Guixi
Source: Xinhua
Editor: huaxia
2026-03-10 09:53:31
NANCHANG, March 10 (Xinhua) -- Guixi of east China's Jiangxi Province boasts the largest copper smelting base in the country. Guixi alone accounts for about 10 percent of the country's electrolytic copper output.
Currently, copper finds increasingly wide applications in both daily life and industrial production, especially in new energy vehicles and AI chip manufacturing.
Thanks to more than four decades of development, Guixi now boasts an annual copper production capacity of more than one million tonnes. Driven by an ongoing transformation towards smart operation, 12 labor-intensive steps in the smelting process have been fully automated at the smelter.
Robotic arms transfer copper plates at a smart electrolysis workshop of Guixi Smelter in Yingtan City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)Staff members monitor real-time production data at an intellectual dispatch center of Guixi Smelter in Yingtan City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)Robotic arms weigh and pack finished copper plates at a smart electrolysis workshop of Guixi Smelter in Yingtan City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)Robots transfer copper plates at a smart electrolysis workshop of Guixi Smelter in Yingtan City, east China's Jiangxi Province, on Jan. 21, 2026. (Xinhua/Wan Xiang)
