A robot manages the chicken house of Jiangsu Tiancheng Group. [Photo/Nantong Daily]

A total of 214 enterprises in Nantong, Jiangsu province, have been named to the province's 2026 list of advanced-level smart factories, placing Nantong third among all cities in the province, according to the local industry and information technology bureau.

The provincial list underscores Nantong's accelerating push to become a benchmark for industrial intelligence in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Among the selected firms, Jiangsu Tiancheng Group offers a vivid example of the shift. Its egg production facility, which operates on total digitalization, houses 155,000 chickens in a 12-story enclosure, where robots handle routine monitoring and management. A smart agri‑chain links feed processing, layer farming, and deep‑processing operations, boosting overall production efficiency by 30 percent and expanding the company's partner network to 300 suppliers and distributors.

Over the past year, Nantong has built a three‑tier smart factory system. It now includes 13 national excellence‑level plants, 351 provincial advanced‑level factories and 1,451 foundational‑level smart facilities.

Looking ahead, Nantong plans to further integrate artificial intelligence across industrial research and development, production, management and after‑sales services. The goal is to build a comprehensive industrial intelligent application system and take the city's smart manufacturing capabilities to the next level.