At the West Bund in Shanghai, during a tech consumer exhibition themed "AI for Life," KeGong Power noticed a particularly distinctive exhibit among the crowd: a CNC machine tool.
On October 22, at the West Bund International Convention and Exhibition Center, staff from Xmachine demonstrated their second desktop 5-axis machining center—the Xmachine WM-100. This device can be placed on a workbench, integrating 5-axis machining and automatic tool changing capabilities. It allows for machining materials such as metal and wood from different angles, reducing the need for manual flipping and re-clamping. The team is also exploring the use of AI to assist in generating tool paths, aiming to reduce manual programming for users.
Compared to humanoid robots, it may not be as flashy, but it is closer to real-world production processes. The 5-axis linkage and automatic tool changing stem from long-term accumulation in precision machining and motion control; while AI-assisted tool path generation attempts to encode some NC programming experience into software. A desktop CNC (Desktop Computer Numerical Control machine tool) sits precisely at the intersection of manufacturing capability, industrial knowledge, and AI tools.
This represents one of the most noteworthy paths for Chinese AI that we believe deserves attention: AI entering industry.
Beyond the models themselves, this requires continuously operating production lines, data that can be collected, process knowledge accumulated over time, and specific procedures that allow for repeated verification and correction. These conditions do not easily appear in laboratories; they rely on an industrial system that is still running and has sufficient depth.
Bringing manufacturing tools into tech consumer scenarios poses a more specific question: Can China's accumulated industrial capabilities leverage software and AI to further lower barriers to entry, extending from factory workshops to the desks of more creators and small R&D teams?
The answer lies not only at the WTCC 2026 site, but also in capital markets and overseas crowdfunding platforms.
Capital and Crowdfunding Have Heated Up First
Before October had even ended, two large funding news items emerged from the desktop CNC sector.
Four days ago, Investment Community reported that Lingju Innovation announced the completion of a new round of financing worth tens of millions of CNY. Disclosures indicate that investors include Nanshan Strategic Emerging Investment and Longhua Capital. Founded in late January this year, the company's core members come from Intel, DJI, and Apple. To date, it has completed two rounds of financing, with capital betting consecutively before its first product has even officially launched.
A week prior, according to SSE STAR Market Daily, InfiMaker, which shifted from embodied intelligence to the desktop CNC track, also completed a Pre-A+ round of financing worth tens of millions of USD, with investors being IDG Capital and Kunlun Capital. This company also has a DJI background. After switching tracks in the second half of 2025, its previously completed Angel and Pre-A rounds totaled nearly 100 million CNY, followed by this new Pre-A+ round of tens of millions of USD.
Earlier, Makera completed an A-round financing of hundreds of millions of CNY, ToolDance accumulated hundreds of millions of CNY after completing its Pre-A round, and NestWorks secured hundreds of millions of CNY through a series of angel round financings.
Multiple startup teams are concentrating on this market, and investment institutions are seeking new opportunities in consumer hardware. The 3D printing industry has already produced Bambu Lab; whether a similar enterprise will emerge in desktop CNC has become a focus of capital interest.
The overseas crowdfunding market provides another observation window. For hardware startups, crowdfunding helps contact early users before mass production, allowing them to assess product configurations, pricing, and initial demand. Changes in crowdfunding results across generations of products from Makera reflect this growing demand.
In its first crowdfunding campaign in 2021, the Carvera attracted 588 backers with approximately $1.7 million in pledges. The Carvera Air, launched in 2024, saw backers increase to 2,098—about 3.6 times the 2021 figure—with pledged amounts reaching $3.47 million. By 2025, the Z1 gathered 6,927 backers during a 45-day crowdfunding period, with pledges totaling $10.2451 million. It became one of only two desktop CNC projects in 2025 to break the $10 million mark in crowdfunding, the other being the NestWorks C500 launched by NestWorks.
In 2026, desktop CNC crowdfunding records continue to be broken. This October, the ToolDance X1 under ToolDance also landed on Kickstarter. According to project updates released by the company on the crowdfunding platform on October 16, within about 13 hours of launch, the project garnered 1,980 backers with pledges exceeding $10 million.
From hundreds to thousands of people, from millions to tens of millions of dollars, and now breaking the $10 million mark in just over ten hours, an increasing number of overseas consumers are willing to pre-pay for desktop CNCs. With capital entering densely, startups emerging consecutively, and market demand beginning to be verified, signs indicate that this niche segment, long confined to professional manufacturing, is being rapidly pushed toward the consumer market.
However, although all recognize the market opportunity for desktop CNCs, these startups have differing understandings of the market. Some aim to attract ordinary consumers with lower prices and usage barriers, while others choose to retain stronger machining capabilities to target professional makers and small R&D teams.
These judgments directly influence corporate product roadmaps.
The Debate Over 5-Axis: Who to Serve First
To understand the product roadmaps of desktop CNC companies, one must first grasp the difference between 3-axis and 5-axis systems.
Here, "axis" refers to the controllable directions of motion between the cutting tool and the workpiece. The most common 3-axis machines allow relative movement along left-right, front-back, and up-down directions. For example, when machining a piece of metal, the machine can drill holes, cut slots, and mill contours. However, if machining is needed on the other side, the process typically stops, requiring the part to be flipped and re-fixed.
4-axis and 5-axis systems add rotational directions on this basis. Simply put, this allows the tool or workpiece to adjust angles, enabling machining from different directions. During 5-axis linkage, the five motion axes coordinate during cutting, facilitating more complex curved surface machining.
Sounds like 5-axis is definitely applicable to more products and easier to use than 3-axis. But adding axes implies more complex mechanical structures, control systems, and higher manufacturing and usage costs. According to rough estimates by KeGong Power, adding a fourth axis to a 3-axis base usually requires an additional payment of $300 to $700. Configurations supporting 5-axis linkage may incur extra expenditures exceeding $1,000.
However, from the demand side, industry insiders estimate that about 80% of tasks in traditional industrial CNC machining can be completed via 3-axis, with scenarios truly requiring 5-axis accounting for only a small proportion.
Therefore, current domestic desktop CNC products primarily base themselves on 3-axis systems, then meet users' more complex machining needs by adding a fourth axis or other expansion modules.
According to published product plans, Makera's Z1 and NestWorks' C500 both adopt a scheme of a 3-axis main unit paired with an optional fourth axis. ToolDance's X1 further provides a 5-axis expansion module, allowing users to select machining capabilities based on actual needs.
The thinking behind these products is to first lower the barrier for users to purchase and use CNC, then gradually satisfy more complex demands. For users primarily doing daily prototyping, a moderately priced, easy-to-use device capable of completing most routine machining tasks may be more attractive than a fully functional 5-axis machine tool.
But some companies choose to go all-in immediately. For instance, Xmachine highlighted5-axis linkage as a key selling point at the WTCC 2026 site. InfiMaker's K1 also features a desktop CNC focused on 5-axis linkage, automatic tool changing, and AI-assisted programming. These two companies are targeting users who already have certain machining experience and have higher requirements for complex parts and small-batch precision manufacturing.
However, there is no consensus in the market regarding who5-axis should serve. InfiMaker founder Xiang Linjian believes that 5-axis will become standard equipment for consumer-grade CNC in the future. InfiMaker's roadmap uses more complex hardware and software to achieve a simpler user experience.
Regardless of the route taken, facing more users with desktop CNC inevitably involves software. For individual studios and small R&D teams, equipment price is only part of the cost. Who handles programming, tool selection, and clamping after buying the machine? How long does it take for engineers to learn operation? Does machining failure require repurchasing materials? These factors also affect procurement decisions.
Unlike 3D printing, where importing a 3D model into the device allows immediate start, CNC machining requires users to tell the machine what tool to select, where to enter, how much material to remove per pass, and in what order to process.
These tasks typically rely on Computer-Aided Manufacturing (CAM) software. Among them, tool path planning is particularly important. A tool path is the motion trajectory followed by the cutting tool during material removal, directly affecting machining efficiency, part accuracy, and even determining whether the tool collides with the workpiece or fixture.
Previously, in traditional CNC job shops, tool path planning was usually handled by NC programming engineers with professional experience. Larger factories even set up dedicated programming positions, where engineers selected tools, designed processing sequences, and wrote and repeatedly debugged programs based on part drawings.
Now, the development of AI and automation software is providing new possibilities for lowering this barrier. Staff told KeGong Power that Xmachine is attempting to use AI to assist in generating tool paths, reducing manual programming work for users. They summarized this function in one sentence: "Just give it your 3D graphic, and it will automatically generate the tool path map."
All software aims to reduce steps users must perform manually. But before actual machining, generated tool paths still need simulation and manual verification combined with material, tool, and clamping conditions, with parameters adjusted based on results. There remains a distance of process verification between currently being able to generate a machining route and stably producing parts that meet requirements.
Made in Europe/US Ten Years Ago, Why Is It China's Turn Now?
Putting 5-axis machine tools on the desk is not a recent idea proposed by Chinese companies. European and American companies began exploring this market more than a decade ago.
In September 2014, UK startup 5AXISMAKER launched a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter, introducing a desktop device integrating 5-axis milling, 3D printing, and other functions. One year later, US startup Pocket NC also moved a 5-axis machine tool onto the desk. Early supporter pricing was only $3,500, far below the tens of thousands of dollars typical for industrial 5-axis machine tools at the time.
However, lower hardware prices did not automatically eliminate the usage barrier for 5-axis machining.
In August 2017, a Pocket NC user posted on the official forum complaining that although they purchased a machine supporting 5-axis linkage, they found it difficult to generate desired 5-axis tool paths using the recommended Fusion 360 software.
Pocket NC co-founder Michelle Hertel subsequently responded personally. She acknowledged that most of the company's customers came from professional institutions and education sectors, and that 5-axis machining still posed a high learning threshold. For potential buyers lacking machining experience, the company would actively advise caution against purchasing.
She also mentioned a convention in the machine tool industry at the time: equipment manufacturers were responsible for selling machines, while clients needed to separately purchase professional CAM software and teach themselves programming. For desktop CNC users, the price of a set of professional software could even exceed the cost of the machine itself.
This discussion, occurring nine years ago, actually revealed a reason why desktop CNC has been difficult to popularize for so long: although the machine tools became smaller and cheaper, the usage methods surrounding them still followed the logic of traditional industrial equipment.
And this is precisely what Chinese companies are currently trying to change.
Different from early European and American vendors, this wave of Chinese desktop CNC companies generally integrates software and hardware as an important direction for product development. Automatic tool changing, auto-calibration, machining simulation, and AI-assisted tool path generation are beginning to be integrated into the same equipment and software system. What users purchase is no longer just a machine capable of executing NC programs, but a set of tools covering as much as possible the entire process from design to machining.
Driving this change are the capabilities accumulated over years by China's manufacturing and consumer hardware industries.
Xmachine represents a typical route of industrial technology sinking down. Its parent company, Shuma Electronics, started with car key cutting equipment and gradually extended its R&D experience in 3-axis CNC machine tools to 5-axis machining.
Another batch of startups comes from consumer electronics and robotics fields. For example, the ToolDance team includes consumer hardware talents from DJI and Narwal; NestWorks originated from Shenzhen Elephant Robotics, having long engaged in collaborative robotic arm and robot R&D.
The former are familiar with how consumer electronics control costs, organize supply chains, and simplify operations; the latter possess expertise in precision machining, motion control, and NC software. The combination of these two types of capabilities allows devices previously aimed mainly at engineers to begin being redesigned according to consumer hardware concepts.
Meanwhile, the 3D printing industry also pre-cultivated the market. Chinese companies like Bambu Lab and Creality pushed 3D printers into more personal studios and homes, letting a cohort of consumers get used to directly manufacturing physical objects from 3D models on computers.
Of course, whether these conditions can be converted into a stable market depends on product implementation.
On one hand, software needs to prove its effectiveness on specific workpieces. After AI assists in generating tool paths, users still need to understand basic material, tool, and clamping requirements. Companies also need to provide sufficiently clear operational guidance so new users know how to check and correct machining plans.
On the other hand, multiple products are still in the crowdfunding delivery or early mass production stage. Whether the machines can maintain accuracy long-term, achieve batch delivery on schedule, and keep up with software updates and after-sales service will affect whether users are willing to continue using and recommending them.
These issues also give significance to the appearance of desktop CNC at tech consumer exhibitions like WTCC 2026.
According to organizer materials, "WTCC Creator World" places AI software, hardware workshops, and creator exchanges in the same scenario, with forums and investment roadshows focusing on topics like smart hardware, product landing, and market demand. For manufacturing tools, this provides an opportunity to explain uses and exchange needs with a broader user base.
When tools like 3D printing, laser engraving, and CNC machining appear together in tech consumer scenarios, what companies need to explain extends beyond what parameters the equipment can reach, to what works users can actually complete and what problems they can solve after getting the machine.
This imposes new requirements on Chinese desktop CNC companies: embedding precision machining capabilities into the device, while also handing over operational methods, supporting software, and services to the user.
Machine tools have begun moving onto the desk. Next, what Chinese companies need to prove is whether more people can truly make effective use of them.