Shiyan Guoke Honghu Technology is building what it calls China’s first production base for third-generation agricultural machinery. The company settled in Yunyang District in 2024 and moved from factory construction to trial production in under six months. It has already produced nearly 100 machines and expects an annual output value of 5 billion yuan.

At the company’s production line in the Shiyan High-tech Zone, workers are assembling smart farm equipment including soil-analysis robots and electric autonomous tractors. According to deputy general manager Tang Guohui, the soil-analysis robot is the first of its kind in China. It uses a four-wheel, four-drive chassis equipped with a gamma spectrometer that can analyze about 3,000 mu of soil per day, detecting more than 100 types of soil components.

The company has so far built 30 soil-analysis robots and 20 units of the T70 autonomous tractor. Its technology support comes from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, which partnered with Shiyan in 2024 to establish an industrial base for intelligent agricultural machinery.

Honghu describes itself as the first enterprise in China to produce third-generation farm machinery. Its products operate without drivers, and functions such as fieldwork, charging, and returning to base are all controlled through a unified backend system. Planned investment totals 2 billion yuan across three phases: 700 million for phase one, 500 million for phase two, and 700 million for phase three. The site covers 256 mu and houses R&D, manufacturing, and service centers.

Phase one has built three flexible production lines and produced small batches of T-series smart machines and 10 next-generation soil-analysis robots. Phase two will integrate additional robotics research from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and phase three will develop a big-data center for intelligent agricultural equipment.

By 2025, the company plans to manufacture 1,000 soil-analysis robots, 150 Honghu T70 tractors, and 50 T200 units. Estimated unit values are about 600,000 yuan for the soil robots and 700,000 yuan for the T70.