Recently, the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Electronic Information Manufacturing Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan") was officially released, drawing a new blueprint for the high-quality development of China's electronic information manufacturing industry over the next five years. The novel display is a pioneering, strategic, and foundational industry in the field of next-generation information technology. It is a key carrier for image information, a core interface for human-computer interaction, and an important pillar of the electronic information manufacturing industry.
During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the novel display industry achieved steady progress. The global industry's average annual output value approached 220 billion USD, an increase of over 6% compared to the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Global consumption related to novel displays has exceeded the annual average of 1 trillion USD, and the average driving coefficient of the novel display industry on downstream applications has increased to over 5. The average annual scale of global display materials, equipment, spare parts, and new investments has approached 150 billion USD, and the average driving coefficient of novel display devices on upstream industries has also increased to over 1.2.
China's novel display industry has played a pivotal role in the global industrial landscape. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the output value of China's novel display industry had approached 840 billion CNY, accounting for 53% of the global market. The shipment area of display panels exceeded 220 million square meters, accounting for 77% of the global market. Compared with the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan period, the output value expanded by 1.6 times, and the global market share increased by 17 percentage points; the shipment area of display panels expanded by 1.7 times, and the global market share increased by 22 percentage points.
During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the world economy will exhibit core characteristics of "low-speed growth, landscape differentiation, supply chain restructuring, and intertwined risks." AI and green transition have become key variables, while geopolitics, high debt, and technological games may continue to increase development uncertainties.
As a key component of the new industrialization system, novel display is not only a "multiplier" for improving the full-chain efficiency of the digital economy, but also a "scenario incubator" for cultivating new quality productive forces. It will continue to play a key driving role during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, supporting multiple trillion-CNY-level terminal application markets such as consumer electronics, automotive electronics, industrial electronics, medical health, and virtual reality.
The 15th Five-Year Plan period is a critical period for China's novel display industry to tackle key challenges. It faces both significant development opportunities and more severe challenges.
For China's novel display industry and even the entire electronic information manufacturing industry, the greatest development opportunity during the 15th Five-Year Plan period comes from AI.
From the perspective of manufacturing, the impact of AI goes far beyond simple automation. AI is evolving comprehensively from point applications to full-chain integration, from auxiliary tools to core engines, and from efficiency improvement to value creation, gradually changing the production factors, organizational forms, and competitive landscape of the manufacturing industry. This transformation is not only a technological upgrade but also a fundamental reconstruction of production methods, business models, and industrial ecosystems.
AI and novel display technologies share a synergistic relationship of deep coupling between "hardware carriers and intelligent cores." When the "cognitive ability" of AI is deeply integrated with the "presentation capability" of novel displays, it will inevitably give birth to entirely new application scenarios and industrial ecosystems. The synergistic evolution of the two will not only redefine the boundaries of human-computer interaction but also become a "new anchor" for global technological and industrial competition.
The prosperity of AI technology is activating the genes of high-quality development in the novel display industry in an all-round way, helping the industry achieve an ecological leap. Meanwhile, continuous breakthroughs and upgrades in emerging display technologies provide a rare opportunity for the accelerated implementation of AI technology. The two-way empowerment innovation loop formed by the two will ultimately reconstruct the value of the industrial chain and promote the novel display industry's shift from scale expansion to value enhancement. From green intelligent manufacturing to scenario innovation, China's novel display industry is leading the digital economy towards a higher stage of high-quality development, providing underlying support for the intelligent transformation of thousands of industries.
For China's novel display industry, the greatest development challenge during the 15th Five-Year Plan period comes from the restructuring and relocation of regional industrial chains.
Since the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan, significant changes have emerged in the new round of industrial globalization. This has led to the traditional single global division of labor model, which is cost- or user-oriented and prioritizes efficiency, being gradually replaced by the emerging diversified regional industrial chain restructuring and relocation. The new model mainly strengthens trade compliance, aims to enhance systematic competitiveness, and prioritizes both efficiency and security.
The novel display industry is an industry with typical "global" characteristics, and this is especially true for China's novel display industry, where the output value scale is comparable to the volume of foreign trade, and trading partners are spread across the globe. The global novel display industry has experienced four rounds of single global industrial chain restructuring and relocation. Currently, the fourth round, which was mainly directed towards mainland China, has been basically completed.
Since the beginning of the 15th Five-Year Plan, the fifth round of industrial chain restructuring and relocation is unfolding. Unlike in the past, this fifth round is no longer a proactive relocation driven by counter-cyclical investments of enterprises supported by industrial policies, nor is it a unidirectional relocation between countries or regions, and it is no longer a tier-by-tier relocation based on the maturity of the industrial chain. Instead, it is a passive relocation, a diversified relocation with high uncertainty risks, and a skip-tier link relocation divided according to the degree of risk or purpose requirements.
The fifth round of industrial chain restructuring and relocation will bring more new challenges to the high-quality development of China's novel display industry, including but not limited to: terminal demand being segmented by regional trade rules, increasing the pressure of order loss; complex supply chain security risks and increased uncertainty in the supply of key elements; capacity and investment returns under pressure, amplifying industry profit fluctuations; diversion of global capital and R&D resources, intensifying high-end technology competition; and tiered or skip-tier relocation of the industrial chain, eroding the integrity of the local industrial ecosystem.
Opportunities and challenges are inherently two sides of the same coin in the development of things, with no absolute boundaries between them. Opportunities often conceal unknown risks; if one blindly seizes opportunities while ignoring the hidden dangers behind them, opportunities will turn into dilemmas. Challenges themselves also contain room for breakthroughs; by facing difficulties squarely and taking the initiative to adapt, new opportunities can be discovered in the process of overcoming hardships.
As the entire manufacturing industry moves towards an AI-driven future, China's novel display industry has clearly realized that although the path of two-way empowerment between novel displays and AI may be complex and challenging, the cost of inaction will be far higher than the investment required for transformation. In the future, China's novel display industry will focus on addressing the challenges from three aspects: strategy, operations, and data governance.
Without clearer strategic guidelines, frameworks, and methods, AI initiatives in the novel display industry are prone to evolving into scattered, technology-driven experiments. These experiments may form isolated success stories but cannot be scaled across the organization, ultimately leading to underutilized investments and missed transformation opportunities.
Practice has proven that only by deploying AI technology from a value-priority perspective can it truly help AI play a greater role, whether in reducing quality issues, preventing costly equipment failures, or optimizing processes that affect energy consumption.
Sound data governance involves not only technical considerations but also clear policies regarding data collection, storage, and use. The path to achieving sound data governance does not require having perfect data from the very beginning; instead, it requires adopting a systematic approach to identify, collect, and manage the most valuable data for specific businesses.
Facing the challenges brought by the diversified regional industrial chain restructuring and relocation, China's novel display industry needs to deploy a new "combination strategy" to explore new opportunities. This includes further enhancing the front-end manufacturing capabilities of display devices (panels), strengthening upstream materials and equipment, proactively deploying "China+1" overseas capacity, and utilizing rules to hedge against trade barriers.
In terms of enhancing the front-end manufacturing capabilities of display devices (panels), on the one hand, China's novel display industry should guide the orderly layout of the industry to prevent hyper-competitive involution. On the other hand, it should adhere to value-oriented R&D and promote advanced processes such as metal oxide backplanes, maskless lithography, and inkjet printing, as well as advanced technologies like AI digital twins and intelligent manufacturing, striving to widen the generational gap with overseas competitors.
In terms of strengthening upstream materials and equipment, on the one hand, China's novel display industry should continue to implement policies for strengthening and stabilizing the novel display industrial chain, focusing on the shortcomings of upstream materials, equipment, and spare parts. It should implement policies such as insurance compensation for the first set of equipment and collaborative verification of the industrial chain, promoting the batch introduction of materials and equipment enterprises into panel production lines to reduce external dependence. On the other hand, it should continue to optimize the business environment to attract the landing of foreign-funded R&D and high-end manufacturing.
In terms of proactively deploying "China+1" overseas capacity, on the one hand, China's novel display industry should continue to increase investment intensity in countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, striving to achieve vertical synergistic going global of the industrial chain and build a bundled healthy ecosystem. On the other hand, it should continuously explore markets such as the "Belt and Road" regions, the Middle East, and Latin America to reduce dependence on a single market.
In terms of utilizing rules to hedge against trade barriers, on the one hand, China's novel display industry should continue to expand the scope and intensity of fiscal and tax policy support to enhance the cost competitiveness of enterprises. On the other hand, it should continue to improve the layout of intellectual property rights and strengthen intellectual property protection. At the same time, it should deeply participate in the formulation of international standards for novel displays, and deploy compliance systems such as green and low-carbon, ecodesign, carbon footprint, and RoHS/REACH to deal in advance with carbon tariffs and product access barriers in Europe and the United States. It should also establish an early warning mechanism for overseas investment risks to provide compliance, legal, and geopolitical risk support for enterprises going global.
Looking ahead, under the top-level guidance of the "15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Electronic Information Manufacturing Industry," China's novel display industry will surely further improve quality and efficiency, promote transformation and upgrading, advance industry opening-up and cooperation, enhance modern governance capabilities, and complete the transition from following and running alongside to independent leading. It will see the emergence of more technologies and products with distinct advantages, form more competitive world-class enterprises, and build a more complete industrial ecosystem.
Author | Hu Chunming, Executive Deputy Secretary-General of the Liquid Crystal Branch of the China Optics and Optoelectronics Industry Association
Editor | Wu Lilin
Art Editor | Ma Liya | Supervisor | Lian Xiaodong