Since its inception, artificial intelligence (AI) has maintained a subtle connection with display technology and the industry.
At the 1956 Dartmouth Conference, American computer scientist John McCarthy first proposed and used the term “artificial intelligence.”
Prior to that, in 1954, Smith & Wesson in Philadelphia, USA, launched the world’s first color CRT television, officially ushering in a vibrant era for display technology and the industry.
Since then, driven by the development of new display technologies based on thin-film transistors (TFTs) and propelled by the growth of internet technology, the frequency of human-computer interaction has increased significantly.
This, in turn, has continuously generated massive amounts of data, providing effective and critical support for the development of artificial intelligence.
Since 2020, the relationship between human society and artificial intelligence has been redefined:
AI is evolving from an auxiliary tool into an intelligent partner capable of perception, understanding, creativity, and autonomous decision-making, profoundly transforming nearly every industry and every aspect of human life.
The applications of generative AI have expanded from text and images to multiple domains such as video, code, and music;
Large language models have not only significantly enhanced their reasoning capabilities but have also achieved breakthroughs in ultra-long context windows and multi-parameter models;
Multimodal models can simultaneously process diverse information such as text, images, and audio, driving more natural human-machine interaction;
AI agents have shifted from passive response to active planning, capable of autonomously completing complex task sequences;
Furthermore, the integration of offline large models with edge computing has freed AI from its reliance on the cloud, enabling real-time decision-making on end devices.
AI Reshaping Manufacturing: A Fundamental Transformation
From a manufacturing perspective, the impact of artificial intelligence extends far beyond simple automation;
It is evolving from isolated applications to end-to-end integration, upgrading from a supporting tool to a core engine, and shifting from efficiency gains to value creation, thereby gradually transforming the production factors, organizational structures, and competitive landscape of the manufacturing sector.
This transformation is not merely a technological upgrade, but a fundamental restructuring of production methods, business models, and the industrial ecosystem.
Growing Necessity for AI Adoption in Manufacturing
Currently, the necessity for the manufacturing sector to embrace AI is becoming increasingly apparent.
As global competition intensifies and market demand for customization and efficiency gains continues to grow, AI is rapidly evolving from a competitive advantage into an essential requirement.
According to data from the World Economic Forum, investment in AI within the manufacturing sector is projected to exceed $10 billion by 2025—approximately ten times the level seen in 2020.
The 2024 State of Manufacturing Report by U.S.-based Fictiv reveals that 84% of manufacturing companies have clearly identified the benefits of using AI solutions.
Manufacturing firms that have successfully implemented AI have achieved significant improvements in operational efficiency, with some reducing maintenance costs by 20% to 30% and shortening production times by up to 50%.
These companies have not only optimized their existing operations but have also leveraged AI to drive product and service innovation, opening up entirely new business models and revenue streams.
Widening Gap Between AI Leaders and Late Adopters
Technological advancements are occurring at such a rapid pace that the gap between AI leaders and laggards is widening exponentially.
For manufacturing companies that delay adopting AI, this gap may become insurmountable—as early adopters will not only establish a technological advantage but also accumulate vast amounts of data and learning capabilities that latecomers will struggle to replicate.
Next-Generation Displays: Driving the Manufacturing Industry Toward Digital, Intelligent, and High-End Development
The display industry serves as a core vehicle for technological innovation in manufacturing, a key hub for industrial chain synergy, and a vital engine of economic growth.
Its level of development is directly linked to the digital, intelligent, and high-end transformation of the manufacturing sector.
With its high growth and high value-added characteristics, the display industry continues to inject innovative vitality into multiple sectors—including consumer electronics, new energy vehicles, and smart manufacturing—through a model of “technology empowerment + industrial chain traction.”
Structure of the Display Industry Chain
The display industry refers to the collective term for upstream and downstream sectors centered around display devices.
Its upstream segment encompasses the materials, equipment, and components used in display device manufacturing;
The midstream consists of display devices (panels); and the downstream segment connects to electronic information products such as mobile phones, televisions, and computers.
Display devices are the core of the entire display industry. Over the past two decades, the main trajectory of technological evolution in display devices—and indeed the entire electronics sector—has been the gradual replacement of vacuum electronics technology by semiconductor technology.
Today, semiconductor display devices have completely replaced cathode-ray tube (CRT) displays, reshaping the landscape of next-generation display technologies and industries.
Development and Applications of Next-Generation Display Technologies
Next-generation displays are centered on new principles, materials, structures, and processes, delivering higher performance, greater functionality, and an enhanced user experience.
Typical technologies include OLED, Mini/MicroLED, QLED, and laser displays, which offer advantages such as high resolution, wide color gamut, and low power consumption.
They are widely used in automotive displays, AR/VR, smart healthcare, digital cultural tourism, and wearable devices, serving as the critical infrastructure underpinning cutting-edge applications such as ultra-high-definition video, the Internet of Things (IoT), and the metaverse.
As one of the six major sub-sectors of next-generation information technology, new display technologies play an irreplaceable foundational role in strategic emerging industries.
Global New Display Industry Trends During the 14th Five-Year Plan Period
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, despite the impact of the global economic environment, the global new display industry exhibited a trend of “strong start, weak finish, and gradual recovery.”
Although the industry as a whole experienced fluctuations, its recovery pace was significantly faster than that of other industries.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period: China’s New Display Industry
Achieves Remarkable Success China’s new display industry has undergone rapid development and has become a major growth engine for the global industry.
Its performance during the 14th Five-Year Plan period has been particularly outstanding, not only making outstanding contributions to the global industry but also providing strong support for the steady growth of the Chinese economy.
By 2025, the output value of China’s new display industry is projected to reach nearly $120 billion, exceeding 830 billion yuan, representing an 8% year-on-year increase and accounting for 53% of the global market share.
It is projected that by 2026, the industry’s output value will exceed US$130 billion, equivalent to approximately 900 billion yuan, with a growth rate nearing 9% and a global market share surpassing 55%.
Accelerated Upgrading of the Industrial Chain
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s new display industry chain has fully transitioned from a point-based model to a chain-based model.
Strong interconnections, dynamic extensibility, and systemic synergy have been established across all segments, initially forming a new industrial ecosystem characterized by “point-driven, area-wide coverage and interconnected symbiosis.”
Rapid Growth in Materials and Equipment Sectors
In the new display device sector, China has essentially achieved comprehensive leadership, with its global market position steadily rising.
In 2025, the output value of China’s display device sector is projected to exceed $76 billion (approximately 550 billion yuan), remaining on par with 2021 levels;
However, shipment area is expected to reach 240 million square meters, accounting for 77% of the global total—an increase of nearly 1.47 times compared to 2021. Shipment area is projected to approach 250 million square meters in 2026, with the global share rising to 78%.
In 2025, the average net profit margin of China’s display component enterprises was 2%, 1 percentage point higher than the global average;
R&D investment exceeded $3.4 billion, equivalent to approximately 24 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 7% of revenue—significantly higher than that of most overseas competitors.
In the new display materials and equipment sectors, China’s industry has grown rapidly and has begun to demonstrate global competitiveness.
In 2025, the output value of China’s display materials reached nearly $39 billion, exceeding 270 billion yuan, accounting for over 48% of the global market—a 1.39-fold increase from 2021;
The output value of display equipment is expected to reach approximately $1.3 billion, equivalent to about 9.3 billion RMB, accounting for over 21% of the global market—an 1.86-fold increase from 2021.
Breakthroughs in AMOLED and Advanced Display Technologies
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China has achieved continuous breakthroughs in new display technologies, completely breaking free from the passive state of technological catch-up and preliminarily establishing a new landscape of technological leadership.
In terms of new display device technologies, China has achieved comprehensive leadership in the mainstream TFT-LCD sector, with a global market share approaching 80%;
China has not only achieved scale leadership in the AMOLED sector but has also actively explored innovative and even disruptive process upgrades while taking the lead in launching mass production projects.
In 2025, the shipment area of China’s AMOLED display devices exceeded 9.8 million square meters, with its global market share surpassing that of overseas competitors for the first time, reaching 52%.
During the same period, China’s leading display device companies cumulatively invested over 140 billion yuan and announced the construction of three 8.6-generation AMOLED production lines, each adopting one of three differentiated advanced processes:
Fine Metal Mask (FMM), Visionox Intelligent Pixelation (ViP), and Inkjet Printing (IJP).
Currently, these innovative and even disruptive construction projects are progressing smoothly and are expected to achieve their anticipated goals on schedule.
Improving Industrial Self-Reliance and Localization
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, facing the challenges of a fragmented global economic governance system and the restructuring of industrial and supply chains, China’s display industry has continuously and dynamically mitigated risks in these areas, resulting in a significant improvement in self-reliance and control.
By 2025, the average domestic sales ratio of China’s new-generation display device enterprises will exceed 57%, an increase of 7 percentage points compared to 2021;
The localization rate of display materials, calculated by value, will exceed 70%, an increase of nearly 10 percentage points compared to 2021;
The localization rate for display equipment, calculated by value, has reached 45%, an increase of 28 percentage points compared to 2021; and the localization rate for display equipment components, calculated by value, stands at 74%, an increase of 1 percentage point compared to 2021.
The AI-Integrated Display Industry: Deep Coupling of Intelligent Cores and Hardware Platforms
For the next-generation display industry, artificial intelligence and new display technologies form a synergistic relationship characterized by the deep coupling of “intelligent cores and hardware platforms.”
The “intelligence” of AI must reach users through tangible interactive interfaces, and next-generation display technologies—with their high-definition, flexible, and scenario-specific characteristics—are precisely the most critical “windows of expression” for AI.
When the “cognitive capabilities” of AI are deeply integrated with the “presentation capabilities” of next-generation displays, it will inevitably give rise to entirely new application scenarios and industrial ecosystems.
The co-evolution of these two fields not only redefines the boundaries of human-machine interaction but also becomes a new focal point of global competition in the technology industry.
Throughout the entire lifecycle of next-generation displays, AI is emerging as a core tool for enhancing quality and efficiency, continuously permeating from R&D to manufacturing.
AI Accelerating Display Design and R&D
In the design and development phase, AI is shortening design cycles from months or weeks to hours, significantly boosting R&D efficiency while driving corporate profit growth.
LG Display’s proprietary “Design AI” utilizes edge design AI algorithms to automatically generate curved edges and narrow-bezel patterns for flexible display panels, reducing design time from nearly one month to just eight hours.
This technology also performs optical design to optimize color variations in OLED displays based on viewing angles, shortening the design cycle from over five days to less than eight hours.
To date, “Design AI” has generated 200 billion won (approximately $140 million) in profit growth.
LG Display has launched the “AX Innovation Plan” to fully transition to AI, with the goal of increasing overall efficiency in the design and R&D processes by more than 30% within three years.
AI Driving Intelligent Manufacturing Transformation
In the manufacturing sector, artificial intelligence is evolving from point-based inspection to end-to-end intelligent decision-making, significantly improving product yield rates, reducing labor costs, and shortening production cycles.
Samsung Display’s “AI Super Factory” strategy is a core initiative aimed at comprehensively restructuring the smart manufacturing system for next-generation display devices through artificial intelligence.
The strategy seeks to build a “smart display manufacturing ecosystem” by deeply integrating AI technology into the entire panel production process, thereby achieving an end-to-end intelligent transformation from design to mass production.
From 2021 to 2022, Samsung Display piloted AI applications on its A3 and A4 OLED production lines in South Korea, resulting in an 8% increase in production yield and a 25% reduction in production cycle time.
From 2023 to 2024, the company applied AI to its LCD and QD-OLED factories, resulting in an 18% increase in overall efficiency.
Starting in 2025, the company has completed the deployment of AI infrastructure across its global next-generation display device factories, essentially establishing an end-to-end AI manufacturing network.
AI Enhancing Operational Management and Digital Ecosystems
In the realm of operational management, AI is breaking down data silos within the enterprise, building an integrated “display-chip-device” intelligent ecosystem, and driving the industry toward a leap to the high end of the value chain.
Samsung Display of South Korea has established a deep partnership with NVIDIA to build a digital twin network for its global next-generation display device factories using the Omniverse platform.
This enables the creation of virtual factories that mirror production line status in real time, achieving “what you see is what you get” remote monitoring.
It also allows for process validation in a digital space prior to new product launches, reducing production line changeover time by 60%. and use AI to test tens of thousands of parameter combinations in a virtual environment to identify the optimal production plan.
LG Display’s AI office assistant, “Hi-D,” handles tasks such as knowledge search, real-time meeting translation, automatic minute generation, email summarization, and drafting, boosting daily employee productivity by 10% and saving approximately $8.5 million annually in external subscription costs.
AI Empowering Product Innovation and Smart Interaction
In the realm of product innovation, companies are increasingly leveraging AI technology to drive the evolution of new display products from passive output to active sensing and interaction, fostering more innovative forms while significantly reducing power consumption.
Samsung’s Neo QLED 8K series televisions are equipped with the NQ8 AI Gen3 processor, which utilizes 768 neural networks to boost contrast by 40% and color accuracy by 25%, while reducing power consumption by 15%.
Its Galaxy Z Fold7 and Z Flip7 smartphones have also added new AI features.
These utilize artificial intelligence to boost the recognition accuracy of their “Circle to Search” function to 98% and enhance multi-window interaction, resulting in a 30% increase in app launch speeds.
Chinese Corporate Practices: Accelerating Integration, Leading New Trends
China’s new display industry is making comprehensive and multi-level efforts.
Through policy guidance, corporate innovation, product upgrades, and collaboration among industry, academia, and research institutions, it is resolutely advancing the deep integration of artificial intelligence and the new display industry.
This contributes China’s strength to the intelligent development of the global new display industry and leads new trends in industrial development.
Among these efforts, leading enterprises have played a pivotal role.
BOE: Building an AI-Driven Display Ecosystem
BOE Technology Group Co., Ltd. has proposed an “AI+” strategy aimed at restructuring the entire business value chain of the display industry through artificial intelligence technology, thereby injecting new productive forces into the sector’s development.
Officially launched in September 2025, the “BOE Blue Whale Display Large Model” is hailed as the “large model that best understands the display industry,” built by BOE based on 30 years of accumulated industry data.
It features distinct characteristics such as full-modal capabilities, multi-scenario applicability, high precision, and strong reasoning, primarily empowering BOE’s three major business segments: manufacturing, product innovation, and operational management.
With this large model, design proposals can be completed within two minutes of uploading a hand-drawn sketch, and it supports subsequent revisions and adjustments, accelerating R&D speed by nearly 10 times.
The model’s “Predictive Maintenance Model” reduces equipment failure rates by 30%, boosts operational efficiency by 56%, and shortens repair times from hours to minutes;
Its “Virtual Measurement Technology” reduces physical inspections by 30%, shortening the panel production cycle from 15 days to 12 days and increasing annual production capacity by approximately 20%;
Its “AI Eye Quality Inspection System” can identify micron-level defects with 96% accuracy, replacing 70% of manual labor and reducing the product defect rate from the industry average of 8% to below 3%.
TCL CSOT: Advancing Vertical-Domain AI Models
TCL CSOT released the “X-Intelligence Large Model” as early as 2023 and upgraded it to version 3.0 in 2025.
This large model is a domain-specific model tailored for the display industry, featuring an industry-specific knowledge base and reasoning capabilities.
Its 3.0 version is hailed as “the first strong-reasoning vertical-domain model in the display industry,” with capabilities surpassing those of DeepSeek-R1-671B.
Through the “aging prediction system” within the large model, TCL CSOT can accurately predict the aging of LCD modules, freeing up nearly 70% of testing production capacity.
TCL Huaxing has also fully deployed the “visual inspection network” from the large model across its nine smart factories, capable of identifying over 4,000 types of micron-level defects.
This has improved accuracy by 12%, increased inspection efficiency by fourfold, and replaced 75% of manual labor.
Tianma Microelectronics: Expanding AI Display Applications
Tianma Microelectronics Co., Ltd. leverages AI technology to drive the implementation of its “All-Domain Display” strategy.
Its independently developed “AI Visual Inspection System” achieves a defect recognition accuracy rate of 99.3%, which is 10 percentage points higher than the industry average and can replace 60% of manual labor, saving approximately 8 million yuan annually.
In 2025, Tianma Microelectronics launched several innovative products that extensively utilize AI technology, further expanding the application scenarios for AI.
Among them, the “All-Range Light-Sensitive Tian Gong Display” integrates AI technology with fingerprint recognition, ambient light sensing, and lifespan monitoring, enhancing light signal collection capabilities by 40 times, improving ambient light monitoring accuracy by 30%, and enabling adaptive eye protection for smart devices;
The “Tianxuan Display for Smart Cockpits” features ACRUS pixel-level dimming, anti-glare AI algorithms, and AI-enhanced augmented reality display capabilities, which eliminate driving blind spots while improving driving safety.
Visionox: Building a Digital and Intelligent Platform
Visionox Technology Co., Ltd. officially announced in early November 2025 that it had completed the construction of the “Vision Intelligence Platform” (though a specific launch date has not yet been disclosed).
Visionox stated that this platform serves as the core strategic tool for the company’s digital and intelligent transformation, comprehensively empowering the entire display industry value chain by building a group-level data lake and AI capabilities.
Compared to other platforms in the industry, it places greater emphasis on comprehensive coverage of business scenarios and the in-depth mining of data value, representing the company’s differentiated strategy in the competition for artificial intelligence within the display industry.
The company’s “Weishu Intelligence Platform” is not merely an AI model but a complete digital and intelligent ecosystem that emphasizes the integrated consolidation of data governance, business collaboration, and AI applications, forming a complete “data-algorithm-application” closed-loop.
Strengths and Weaknesses of Mutual Empowerment
In the process of mutual empowerment between China’s new display industry and artificial intelligence technology, China holds three key advantages over its overseas competitors: “rapid application deployment, diverse data acquisition channels, and relatively low deployment costs.”
At the same time, it faces three major challenges: “high barriers in equipment and materials, significant gaps in core algorithms, and low participation in international standards.”
China’s Key Competitive Advantages
Regarding strengths: First, China is not only one of the world’s three largest consumer markets for new display technologies but also one of the world’s most comprehensive industrial clusters for the new display industry.
It boasts the most extensive range of application scenarios and the largest market scale, significantly accelerating the integration of AI and new display technologies—far surpassing overseas competitors.
Second, China’s new display industry accounts for over 75% of global production capacity in the display panel sector and has established a presence in nearly all new display technologies.
This facilitates the generation of massive amounts of manufacturing data across various new display technologies, accelerating the validation and iteration of AI technologies and thereby creating economies of scale.
Third, thanks to a solid foundation in manufacturing digitization, AI deployment costs in China are generally 30% to 50% lower than those of overseas competitors, providing a clear cost-efficiency advantage.
Major Challenges Facing the Industry
Regarding weaknesses: First, since China’s new display industry relies heavily on overseas companies for upstream process equipment and certain key core materials—which are highly monopolized and subject to technical or patent barriers—this severely limits the depth of AI application by Chinese enterprises.
Second, in core areas such as general-purpose AI algorithms and foundational model architectures, Chinese companies still lag behind top international institutions (such as Google DeepMind and OpenAI).
Combined with a shortage of high-end talent, this results in insufficient capacity for basic research and original innovation.
Third, although China currently accounts for 52% of the world’s total AI patents, the proportion of high-value patents is significantly lower than that of the United States.
Consequently, China has not yet established the necessary influence in the AI technology sector regarding the formulation of international standards in the field of next-generation displays.
Future Challenges
As the manufacturing industry accelerates toward an AI-driven future, China’s new display industry has come to a clear realization: although the path of mutual empowerment between new display technologies and AI is complex and fraught with challenges, the cost of inaction will far exceed the investment required for transformation.
At present, the vision of AI-driven manufacturing systems has not yet been fully realized. Moving forward, the industry will focus on addressing key challenges in three major areas—strategy, operations, and data governance—to continue on this unfinished journey.
Building Effective AI Strategies and Governance Frameworks
In reality, without clear strategic direction, frameworks, and methodologies, the integration of the new display industry with AI is highly likely to devolve into fragmented, technology-driven experiments.
While these experiments may yield isolated success stories, they cannot be scaled across the entire organization, ultimately leading to underutilized investments and missed opportunities for transformation.
An effective strategic approach that starts with specific, well-defined business challenges often yields better results than attempting a comprehensive transformation all at once.
The key lies in ensuring that AI aligns with business objectives and focuses on addressing actual operational needs, rather than pursuing technology for technology’s sake.
A strategic framework is a process governance structure established to meet data requirements and identify the necessary skills and resources.
Establishing a strategic framework helps avoid common pitfalls and address practical management challenges.
A strategic approach involves demonstrating a clear relationship and a well-defined path between AI initiatives and business value.
Communicating this strategic approach helps build confidence in AI across the organization and garner broad support from both management and frontline employees.
Prioritizing Business Value in AI Deployment
Manufacturing companies often fall into a common trap when applying AI technologies to their operations: they tend to start with the technology rather than with business value.
Technical teams frequently champion projects such as machine vision or predictive analytics simply because these technologies are impressive.
While these solutions are technically feasible, they may not address the most pressing operational challenges or deliver meaningful financial returns.
Experience has shown that only by prioritizing value when deploying AI technologies can we truly maximize AI’s potential—whether to reduce quality issues, prevent costly equipment failures, or optimize processes that impact energy consumption.
Manufacturing companies can focus on three key areas to identify AI opportunities: first, persistent operational issues that traditional methods struggle to resolve;
Second, processes with high costs or significant efficiency gaps; and third, processes that can be optimized through predictive analytics to prevent problems before they occur.
The Importance of Data Governance and Data Quality
Although AI solutions hold great promise, their effectiveness depends entirely on the quality, relevance, and scale of the data.
Erroneous or inconsistent data leads to unreliable models, which in turn generate incorrect predictions or recommendations—not only wasting resources but potentially undermining an organization’s trust in AI systems.
Similarly, missing or insufficient data limits an AI model’s ability to understand and improve.
The core objectives of data governance are twofold: first, to ensure that a single source of truth is used consistently and accurately across all departments; second, to achieve interoperability among data generated in different formats by various systems and devices through integration and standardization.
Effective data governance involves not only technology but also the establishment of clear policies regarding data collection, storage, and usage.
Achieving this goal does not require pursuing “perfect data” from the outset; rather, it calls for a systematic approach to identify, collect, and manage the most valuable data for specific business needs.
The Future Vision of the Next-Generation Display Industry
The ultimate vision of the next-generation display industry is “displays everywhere.”
Companies in this sector are constantly redefining the boundaries of human-machine interaction through technological breakthroughs and using displays as a medium to bridge the digital and physical worlds—this is the very foundation and tangible expression of that ultimate ideal.
The flourishing of artificial intelligence (AI) technology is comprehensively activating the potential for high-quality development within the new display industry, helping it achieve an ecological leap.
Meanwhile, the continuous advancement of emerging display technologies provides valuable opportunities for accelerating the practical application of AI.
The mutual empowerment created by these two forces will ultimately reshape the value of the industrial chain, driving the new display industry to shift from scale expansion to value enhancement.
From green intelligent manufacturing to scenario innovation, this process of integration not only leads the digital economy toward a higher stage of quality development but also provides a solid foundation for the intelligent transformation of industries across the board.