China Says AI Adoption in Key Manufacturing Scenarios Hit 34.2% in H1 2026

The headline number matters less than the framing: Beijing is now measuring AI uptake through an official industrial-integration index, which effectively sets a benchmark that provincial and firm-level targets will be judged against. That makes the reported penetration rate a policy instrument as much as a statistic, with implications for manufacturers under pressure to demonstrate digital adoption and for the vendors supplying those systems. Whether the metric captures genuine deployment or reported compliance is the open question.