China’s lab automation sector hasn’t grabbed attention, walking humanoid robots make for better headlines than automated liquid handlers, but its impact may prove just as transformative. In the world’s largest and fastest-moving scientific market, hospitals and research centres handle sample volumes unmatched anywhere else, giving Chinese lab automation firms a testing ground no other country can offer. That scale has allowed them to optimise faster, cheaper, and more aggressively than Western competitors. And with biomanufacturing now elevated to an explicit national priority at the highest levels of government, these companies are shifting from domestic momentum to global ambition. What they’re exporting isn’t just machinery, it’s an entirely new operating model for modern biology.
Introduction
Across China’s research parks and biotech corridors, the whirr of automated workflows has become the new soundtrack of progress, signalling a transformation as profound as any in the nation’s industrial past. Once known as the world’s workshop, China is fast becoming its labshop: the place where the tools of biological research are designed and built.
The country’s forthcoming Five-Year Plan puts biomanufacturing at the centre of its innovation agenda, elevating it from a niche pursuit to a national growth engine. Across Shenzhen, Shanghai, and Suzhou, a new generation of lab automation firms is building the hardware and intelligence that power modern biology, from robotic cell-culture systems to AI-directed bioprocessing.
These companies aren’t content to serve the domestic market. Stress-tested in one of the world’s largest, fastest-moving scientific environments and fuelled by massive sample volumes that have allowed relentless optimisation, they’re now scaling aggressively into Europe, the Middle East, and the Americas. Their pitch: a new standard of precision, reproducibility, and speed in biological R&D.
This isn’t just “Made in China”. It’s Invented, Automated, and Globalized in China. For global biotech leaders and investors, the question is no longer if China’s laboratory automation revolution will reach Western lab benches, but how quickly it will arrive, even as the traditional lab bench itself becomes optional!
The Companies Driving China’s Lab Automation Revolution
This selection focuses on robotics and automation companies with direct applications in life sciences and biomanufacturing. Companies primarily engaged in humanoid robotics are excluded, and we also exclude operations outside the life sciences, where applicable. Included are firms that demonstrate clear relevance, meaningful breadth, and strong technological innovation in laboratory and production automation.
MGI Tech (华大智造 / MGI)
Website: https://en.mgi-tech.com
Founded: 2016 | Headquarters: Shenzhen
Focus Area: Genetic sequencing, sample processing, multi-omics, clinical diagnostics
Summary: MGI provides end-to-end “sample-to-report” sequencing platforms that integrate high-throughput genetic sequencing with automated sample preparation, enabling scalable, domestically manufactured solutions for research and clinical applications. One of the most globally established companies profiled, MGI reports business operations across six continents and in over 100 countries and regions worldwide. They have established a new European headquarters in Berlin, Germany, while the company also operates a manufacturing facility in Riga, Latvia.
MegaRobo Technologies (镁伽科技 / MegaRobo)
Website: https://www.megarobo.com
Founded: 2016 | Headquarters: Beijing
Focus Area: Laboratory automation, AI-driven robotics, drug discovery, high-throughput screening
Summary: MegaRobo delivers integrated robotics, AI, and data-driven automation platforms that streamline R&D and drug discovery workflows, from cell-line development and assay screening to imaging, with the goal of enhancing reproducibility and efficiency in biopharma labs.
BIOYOND (奔曜科技)
Website: https://www.bioyond.com/en/
Founded: 2018 | Headquarters: Shanghai
Focus Area: Laboratory automation, clinical diagnostics, analytical workflows
Summary: Bioyond develops intelligent robotic and vision-based automation systems for research, diagnostics, and analytical labs. Its modular platforms support applications in small-molecule drug discovery, biologics, cell and gene therapy, and synthetic biology.
IMADEK (迈迪克)
Website: https://www.csmadik.com/
Founded: 2015 | Headquarters: Shenzhen
Focus Area: Automated laboratory systems, clinical diagnostics, biobanking
Summary: IMADEK designs and manufactures automated diagnostic and sample-processing systems, including nucleic-acid extractors, liquid-handling modules, and blood-bank automation, serving molecular diagnostics, immunoassay, and IVD applications.
Haier Biomedical (海尔生物)
Website: https://www.haierbiomedical.co.uk/
Founded: 2014 | Headquarters: Qingdao
Focus Area: IoT-enabled cold-chain systems, smart labs, biobanking, biomedical storage
Summary: A division of Haier, the Chinese multinational home appliances and consumer electronics behemoth, Haier Biomedical provides digitally managed cold-chain and smart-lab infrastructure, including ultra-low-temperature storage, biosafety cabinets, and vaccine and biobank management solutions. It supports hospitals, research institutes, and biopharma facilities worldwide.
RayKol Group (睿科 / RayKol)
Website: https://www.raykol.com
Founded: 2007 | Headquarters: Xiamen, Fujian
Focus Area: Analytical chemistry, food and environmental testing, clinical diagnostics
Summary: RayKol develops modular, high-throughput sample-preparation and automation systems for analytical, environmental, and clinical laboratories, with the ambition to offer standardized platforms for routine testing and quality control.
XtalPi (晶泰科技 / XtalPi)
Website: https://www.xtalpi.com
Founded: 2015 | Headquarters: Shenzhen
Focus Area: AI-driven drug discovery, crystallography, molecular R&D
Summary: XtalPi combines computational chemistry, AI-based molecular modeling, and automated lab execution to accelerate the discovery and optimization of drug candidates from molecular design through synthesis and testing. Of note, XtalPi has partnered with Microsoft China on an “AI for Science” initiative, combining XtalPi’s drug-discovery automation with Microsoft’s cloud and AI infrastructure.
Insilico Medicine (英矽智能 / Insilico Medicine)
Website: https://insilico.com
Founded: 2014 | Headquarters: Hong Kong / Suzhou R&D Center
Focus Area: AI-driven drug discovery, precision medicine, life-science automation
Summary: Insilico Medicine integrates AI algorithms for target and molecule discovery with robotic laboratory platforms, supporting end-to-end automated drug design, synthesis, and validation in precision medicine.
FAIR Innovation (Suzhou)
Website: https://www.fair-innovation.com
Founded: 2015 | Headquarters: Suzhou
Focus Area: Biomanufacturing automation, diagnostic production, laboratory robotics
Summary: FAIR Innovation develops collaborative robot systems for biomanufacturing and diagnostic automation, emphasizing flexible, localized production capabilities and supply-chain independence for life-science manufacturing environments.
Policy Landscape: Biomanufacturing as China’s Next Frontier in Life Sciences
As China seeks to transition from being the “workshop of the world” to the “laboratory of the world,” biomanufacturing has become central to its next phase of industrial policy. The forthcoming 15th Five-Year Plan (2026–2030) identifies biomanufacturing as one of the nation’s core “future industries.” This positioning places life-science instrumentation, high-throughput robotics, and autonomous laboratory systems squarely within the country’s innovation and industrial agenda.
Analysts note that biomanufacturing has been explicitly cited as a key economic growth engine in China’s push for what policymakers call “new quality productive forces.” In practical terms, this means expanded public investment, regional subsidies, and procurement mandates across genomics, biologics, cell and gene therapy, and diagnostic manufacturing.
What This Means for Lab Automation and Sequencing Hubs
The policy emphasis on biomanufacturing directly benefits the companies featured earlier in this article. Hospitals, clinical centers, and R&D institutes are now under growing pressure to adopt domestically produced automation systems. As China scales biologics and microbial production, demand will increase for sample-preparation robotics, high-density liquid-handling systems, and automated bioreactor monitoring, precisely the technologies these emerging robotics firms provide.
Meanwhile, designated biomanufacturing demonstration zones in Jiangsu, Guangdong, and the Beijing region are offering preferential tax terms, subsidies, and talent incentives to automation and robotics providers. For international firms, this means a transition from acting as external suppliers to becoming co-development partners within China’s ecosystem. Market entry and competitiveness will increasingly depend on localization, manufacturing, R&D, or service footprints inside China’s priority zones.
Conclusion
China’s lab automation and biomanufacturing sectors are converging into a single innovation engine. What began as a push for self-reliance has evolved into a globally competitive ecosystem where AI, robotics, and biology intersect. For international life-science companies, the question is no longer whether to engage, but how early, and on what terms. Those who understand this system now will be best positioned to help shape the next phase of global biotech manufacturing.
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