Innovation Leads Ecological Restructuring: China’s Building Materials Industry Embarks on a New Chapter of Quality Upgrading in 2025
In 2025, China’s building materials industry is stepping into a new phase of high-quality development featuring green low-carbon and intelligent efficiency, driven by policy guidance, technological innovation and market demand. With key concepts such as “new quality productive forces” and “high-quality housing” incorporated into the government work report, the industry’s transformation direction has become increasingly clear, and collaborative innovation and sustainable development across the entire industrial chain have emerged as the core themes.
Targeted policy efforts have laid a solid foundation for the industry’s development. During the National Two Sessions, relevant deputies and committee members focused on the transformation needs of the materiais de construção sector, putting forward a number of proposals on technological innovation, standard improvement and green transition to form a policy synergy supporting high-quality industrial development. The “trade-in” policy continues to release consumption potential, boosting renewal demand in the home building materials field. Meanwhile, the promotion of ultra-low energy consumption buildings and the advancement of people’s livelihood projects such as old community renovation have opened up broad market space for the industry. Against the backdrop of the in-depth advancement of the “dual carbon” goals, the industry’s green transition has entered a critical stage, and balancing development with emission reduction as well as current needs with long-term interests has become a consensus across the sector.
Technological innovation serves as the core engine driving industrial upgrading. In response to the requirements of the entire industrial chain transformation centered on “green materials—green environment—green energy”, the building materials sector has continuously promoted structural adjustment. A series of innovative products such as new-type concrete, energy-saving glass, thin-film solar glass and new gypsum boards have emerged, significantly enhancing the green, low-carbon, safe and functional levels of buildings. To meet the demand for “high-quality housing” construction, the industry is establishing a sustainable ecological system covering “basic research—applied research—production and manufacturing—downstream application”, realizing the organic integration of materials and buildings through the integrated application of key technologies and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements. At the same time, the in-depth penetration of AI technology is reshaping the industry’s development genes, promoting the transformation of material research paradigms from empirical and digital to artificial intelligence-driven, and accelerating the R&D and implementation of new technologies and materials. Breakthroughs in high-end electronic materials such as low-dielectric glass fibers have provided key support for fields such as AI servers and high-frequency communication base stations, forming mutual empowerment between material innovation and technological iteration.
Intelligent manufacturing and digital transformation have achieved remarkable results, injecting new vitality into the traditional building materials industry. More and more production scenarios have introduced intelligent equipment such as robotic arms, AGV logistics robots and digital twin systems, realizing “unmanned” and efficient operation of production processes, which has significantly improved production efficiency and reduced product defect rates. The establishment of industrial digital transformation promotion centers and the implementation of major scientific and technological research projects under the “leader recruitment” mechanism have further consolidated innovation synergy and accelerated the penetration of digital technologies across the entire chain of R&D, production and application. At the industrial chain collaboration level, the collaborative innovation mechanism from basic research to downstream application has been gradually improved, and the continuous improvement of the standard system has led to an overall improvement in materiais de construção quality, promoting the industry’s leap from single technological breakthroughs to systematic ecological construction.
Green low-carbon has become the core background of the industry’s sustainable development. The industry is accelerating the elimination of high-energy-consuming and high-emission production capacity, promoting clean production technologies and circular economy models, and building a new green development ecosystem. The promotion and application of new green building materials not only help reduce energy consumption and emissions in the construction field, but also provide a basic guarantee for the improvement of living environments. Meanwhile, the development of green energy industrial chains such as perovskite and cadmium telluride flexible batteries has promoted the transformation of materiais de construção products towards “energization”. Innovative applications such as “power stations on glass” have moved from concepts to reality, opening up new growth points for the industry.
The two-way interaction between consumption upgrading and industrial transformation has injected lasting momentum into the industry’s development. Consumers’ growing demand for green, intelligent and comfortable living environments has forced building materials enterprises to increase R&D investment and improve product quality and service levels. Driven by both policies and the market, the materiais de construção industry is taking the innovation chain as a “strong engine” to accelerate industrial chain transformation, shifting from traditional material manufacturing to high-end material R&D and systematic solution provision. In the future, with the continuous in-depth of technological innovation, the continuous improvement of the green ecosystem and the increasing improvement of the standard system, China’s materiais de construção industry will steadily move towards a safer, greener and more intelligent direction, providing solid support for the construction of a modern industrial system and the improvement of living environments.