2025 marks a crucial year for China’s equipment manufacturing industry as it accelerates its transformation towards high-end, intelligent, and green development.

Northern Heavy Industries (NHI), with a century of deep industry experience, has always taken technological innovation as its core engine and delivered remarkable results at this significant juncture.

A series of technological breakthroughs and product innovations that have reached international advanced levels not only demonstrate the NHI’s profound heritage but also inject strong impetus into the building of a manufacturing powerhouse.

The growth history of NHI is a microcosm of the innovation history of China’s heavy equipment manufacturing industry. As a key player in the industry, it has a solid foundation in fields such as mining, metallurgy, and tunnel engineering.

In 2025, the company closely aligned with the country’s major strategic needs, deepened industry-university-research collaboration, and invested more in research and development than the industry average, achieving a leap from “following” to “l(fā)eading.”

In the field of tunnel engineering equipment, NHI has solved the challenges of ultra-deep shaft construction with its cutting-edge technologies.

In response to the construction challenge of the 637-meter ultra-deep diversion shaft at the Zhejiang Songyang Pumped Storage Power Station, NHI unveiled its “Tiangong” full-face reaming hard rock tunneling machine for ultra-deep shafts.

Standing at 37.7 meters tall and weighing over 480 tons, the machine incorporates several core innovations: its cutterhead features diameter adjustment and in-shaft tool replacement capabilities, breaking through traditional technological bottlenecks; its remote control system enables integrated intelligent operations for tunneling, muck removal, and support, reducing direct underground personnel by over 60%; equipped with over 100 high-precision sensors, it integrates with 3D geological modeling to form an intelligent monitoring system, ensuring construction safety and precision.

In September 2025, “Tiangong” achieved a daily tunneling advance of 20.189 meters; by December, the 637-meter No. 1 diversion shaft was fully completed, setting “two new industry standards and four new industry records,” marking China’s entry into the international advanced ranks in ultra-deep shaft construction equipment and intelligent construction.

Notably, all key components of “Tiangong” are 100% domestically produced and independently controllable, with core component processing precision reaching the micrometer level, breaking foreign monopolies.

NHI’s specialized assembly processes and ultra-heavy load testing fixtures effectively addressed structural stability challenges under extreme static loads, enabling the equipment to pass acceptance tests and enter production in April 2025.

In November of the same year, its “Pangolin No. 1” full-face hard rock tunneling machine passed factory acceptance and is set to be deployed in the construction of the Shaanxi Shahe Pumped Storage Power Station, providing solid equipment support for the national energy strategy.

In the mining equipment sector, NHI is accelerating the intelligent and low-carbon transformation of its products.

In response to the intelligent transformation needs of the mining industry, NHI developed its “SAG Mill Intelligent Control Platform for Grinding and Classification” in 2025, integrating cutting-edge technologies such as IoT, big data, and AI. Through automated and intelligent management, it significantly improves production efficiency and resource utilization while drastically reducing operational costs and safety risks.

Its real-time monitoring and early warning capabilities strengthen production safety, energy-saving technologies promote green production, intelligent learning reduces operator workload, and data-driven decision support enhances management efficiency, further strengthening the core competitiveness of NHI’s mining products.

NHI independently developed the world's first permanent magnet semi-direct drive spiral vertical mill, reducing energy consumption by 30%-50%.

NHI’s key technology for the large-angle mechanism of its dual-purpose (open-top and container) single/double-car dumpers enables compatible operations for both container and open-top cars, featuring 210° large-angle rotation and online material cleaning, resolving the material accumulation issues of traditional equipment.

This technological achievement helped NHI win a bid for a major domestic power plant project, marking the first formal entry of its dumper products into the power system market and breaking through traditional application boundaries in metallurgy and ports.

Equipped with multiple energy-saving technologies, the product significantly reduces carbon emissions while meeting high-efficiency production demands, demonstrating the company’s firm commitment to achieving China’s “dual carbon” goals.

High-end equipment exports and domestic market expansion are advancing in tandem, with NHI breaking through international barriers with its core technological strengths and enhancing the reputation of “Made in China.”

In the international market, NHI signed a supply contract with a renowned international nickel mining company for large-scale mining mills, including an 8.8m × 4.8m semi-autogenous mill and a 6.2m × 11m ball mill—the largest mills undertaken by the company since its mixed-ownership reform.

NHI formally signed a contract with a century-old European material handling equipment manufacturer for crawler transporters, marking the entry of China’s independently developed open-pit mining heavy-duty crawler transporters into the European market. This signifies China’s first technological “l(fā)eapfrog” in the heavy-duty crawler transporter sector and a major breakthrough in high-end equipment manufacturing.

In the domestic market, NHI successfully tested its 5.5-meter wide and thick plate shearing equipment developed earlier in the year, significantly elevating China’s steel processing equipment standards.

At the 10th China International Mining Exhibition, NHI showcased its innovative achievements comprehensively, drawing significant industry attention and laying a solid foundation for future collaborations.

Looking back on 2025, NHI conducted a series of high-level frontier technology research projects and developed a batch of proprietary technologies and new products with international advanced standards, not only advancing industry technological progress but also significantly enhancing its core competitiveness. An NHI official stated, “The company will continue to align with national planning directions, leverage Fangda Group’s upstream and downstream industrial chain advantages, increase R&D investment, deepen industry-university-research collaborations, and actively promote technological innovation and industrial upgrading to lay a solid foundation for sustainable and high-quality development.”

In the future, NHI will focus on core directions such as the independent development, intelligent upgrading, and green and low-carbon development of high-end equipment, continuously tackling key technological challenges in deep earth development and intelligent construction. It will strive to break through critical core technologies, consolidate and expand its international market advantages, inject sustained momentum into the revitalization of Northeast China’s old industrial bases, and write a new chapter for China’s heavy industry with its innovative strength.