China Launches First National Policy for Traditional Industries - AI to Convert Craft Knowledge Into Industrial Data

Highlights

• China's MIIT unveiled its first national policy targeting traditional industries like ceramics, tea, and silk, with 2028 and 2030 modernization targets.
• The policy proposes converting tacit worker knowledge—process parameters, formulations, and techniques—into reusable AI-driven data assets and industrial knowledge graphs.
• By 2030, China aims to develop world-class companies and move traditional industries toward the upper reaches of the global value chain.
• Though rare earths are not covered, the model has direct implications: China could institutionalize the process expertise that makes rare earth separation and magnet manufacturing productive.
• The West may be rebuilding rare earth industrial capacity while China works on digitizing the accumulated experience that makes that capacity competitive.