Authorities in East China's Zhejiang province recently announced the list of the first batch of future factories in 2022. Among the nine that are on the list, three are in Hangzhou, two in Ningbo, and one in Wenzhou, Jiaxing, Shaoxing and Taizhou.

Zhejiang issued the trial plan for the construction of future factories in August 2020.

A future factory refers to a modern plant which widely applies Internet of things, big data, artificial intelligence, industrial internet and other technologies in its digital design, intelligent production, intelligent management, collaborative manufacturing and green manufacturing processes.

Zhejiang has taken the lead in guiding Zhejiang manufacturing plants to use machines to replace simple, repetitive, high-intensity, and high-risk jobs since 2012. There are presently 41 future factories in Zhejiang.