Zhongce Rubber is a Hangzhou-based tire manufacturer. [Photo/WeChat account: XS_HEDA]

In a traditional tire plant, production often means noisy machines, manual forklifts, and experience-driven trial and error. At Zhongce Rubber's AI-powered factory in Hangzhou, that picture is being rewritten.

At the company's R&D center, engineer Wang Xueyan now designs tires with the help of AI. As data streams into the system, a 3D tire model takes shape within minutes, automatically generating dozens of options for tread patterns. What once required large teams and long hours can now be done by a single engineer with AI support.

The tread-design agent is one of 18 AI "agents" ZC Rubber has deployed since June 2025 across R&D, production, and testing. Together, they have shortened tire development cycles by 50 percent and boosted production efficiency by 50 percent.

At the company's Linjiang manufacturing base — recently recognized by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology as an "excellent smart factory" — AI works quietly behind the scenes. Fully enclosed workshops are connected via 5G networks, with vision systems monitoring production, robots handling materials, and automated vehicles managing logistics. AI also optimizes rubber formulas, equipment maintenance, and production scheduling.

Testing has been transformed as well. Virtual simulation agents can run hundreds of durability tests per second, compressing months of physical testing into days and allowing rapid fine-tuning to meet the requirements of automakers.

Thanks to AI-driven scheduling, a workforce that once numbered in the tens of thousands has been streamlined to about 2,000, while labor efficiency has increased fivefold and energy use and pollution have been significantly reduced.

For Zhongce Rubber, integrating AI into manufacturing is not about replacing workers, but about empowering them — using technology to boost efficiency while modernizing the industry in a human-centered way.

Tires at Zhongce Rubber are completely manufactured by robots. [Photo/WeChat account: XS_HEDA]