China's steel industry is speeding up its transformation and upgrading to become more intelligent and green.
This year, steel enterprises across the country have been quickening their pace of such transformation. Currently, over 80 percent of steel companies have built intelligent control centers or launched large-scale model applications, data showed.
According to the China Iron and Steel Association, as of the end of 2024, 171 steel enterprises had completed or partially completed ultra-low emission transformation and assessment monitoring, covering over 70 percent of the country's crude steel production capacity. The cumulative investment has exceeded 200 billion yuan (about 27 billion U.S. dollars). A total of 1,867 energy-saving projects have been built or improved, and the comparable energy consumption per ton of steel has decreased by 1.75 percent year on year.
At the intelligent control center of Baotou Steel Rail and Beam Plant in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, the full production chain data of hundred-meter-long steel rails are displayed in real-time on their screens. Meanwhile, the company uses AI algorithms to achieve intelligent planning of cooling paths and automatic allocation of flaw detection tasks. "Our system can predict cooling equipment anomalies 30 minutes in advance, thus reducing unplanned downtime by 40 percent. As a result, the efficiency of process coordination has increased by 14.2 percent, and energy consumption is down by 18.5 percent," said Lu Jie, who is in charge of intelligent control projects of the company.
While steel enterprises are undergoing digital and green transformation, their products are also moving towards higher-end development.
In Benxi City of northeast China's Liaoning Province, a steel enterprise recently launched its world debut of an ultra-high-strength steel. These products are characterized by high hardness, no coating, high corrosion resistance, and oxidation resistance, and will be used in fields such as aerospace, shipbuilding, and energy equipment.
In Tianjin Municipality in north China, a steel enterprise's seamless steel pipe production line can control impurities in pipes to one per million. The products will be used in undersea oil pipelines with extremely high performance requirements.
This year, China will continue to implement a three-year action plan for the digital transformation of the steel industry. More preferential policies will be rolled out to support enterprises in introducing advanced equipment and technology. Meanwhile, regulatory efforts on green development will be strengthened to promote the comprehensive transformation and upgrading of the steel industry.
China's steel industry accelerates green, smart upgrading
