"Technological self-reliance and self-strengthening" offers development opportunities, and the independent industrial chain of new chemical materials is expected to benefit.

Ask AI · How does Jinfаi Technology plan its strategy in the new materials sector for humanoid robots?

By Qin Jiali

Edited by Li Zhuang

Both the “Fifteen-Five-Year Plan” Outline and the 2026 Government Work Report propose accelerating high-level self-reliance in science and technology. From the perspective of emerging industries, advanced materials and chemical new materials are one of the future development directions.

Currently, both the “Fifteen-Five-Year Plan” Outline and the 2026 Government Work Report propose accelerating high-level self-reliance in science and technology. In terms of tackling key core technologies in key areas, advanced materials and chemical new materials are one of the key directions. Against this backdrop, the chemical new materials industry is entering a period of development opportunities for accelerated domestic substitution, with concept-driven areas such as photoresists, high-end engineering plastics, thermal interface materials, and high-end additives drawing relatively high market attention. Chemical new materials companies with technical strength, capital strength, and integrated capabilities—such as Jinfаi Technology (600143.SH), Tongcheng New Materials (603650.SH), and Shengquan Group (605589.SH)—as leading enterprises in their respective sub-sectors, are expected to benefit first in the wave of industrial localization.

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Chemical new materials as a key breakthrough direction

Domestic substitution may accelerate

This year’s Government Work Report calls for building emerging pillar industries such as integrated circuits, aerospace, biopharmaceuticals, and the low-altitude economy. Establish a mechanism for increasing future-industry investment and sharing risks, and cultivate and develop future industries such as future energy, quantum technology, embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, 6G, and others.

Research reports by institutions such as Pacific Securities believe that in this year’s Government Work Report, advanced materials and chemical new materials have been explicitly listed as key breakthrough directions, and the number of major engineering projects in new materials during the “Fifteen-Five” period is significantly higher than in the “Fourteen-Five.” With the “Fifteen-Five” opening and the top-level design of new-quality productive forces jointly driving progress, supporting materials for new-quality productive forces are expected to receive long-term policy support and enter a phase of rapid development.

Also, according to an East China Securities research report, the “Fifteen-Five” goals highlight new-quality productive forces leading the way, self-reliance in science and technology, and modernization of the industrial system—thereby presenting the chemical new materials industry with an opportunity period for accelerated domestic substitution. China’s chemical new materials overall self-sufficiency rate is about 56%. To strengthen the endogenous driving force and reliability within the domestic big circulation, chemical new materials industries such as photoresists for semiconductors, high-end engineering plastics, thermal interface materials, and high-end additives are expected to see opportunities for accelerated development through domestic substitution.

Focusing on leading enterprises in sub-sectors of chemical new materials—those with technical capability, capital capability, integrated capability, and accumulated customer resources—are expected to benefit first in the wave of localization. For example, Jinfаi Technology, a modified plastics company expanding into areas such as intelligent robots; Shengquan Group, a battery materials company; Tongcheng New Materials, an electronic chemicals company; Lianrui New Materials, focused on advanced chip packaging technologies; Chenghe Technology, a polymer additives company, and others.

So far, the aforementioned companies have generally recorded growth in performance. Among them, performance briefings from Lianrui New Materials and Chenghe Technology show that in 2025 they respectively achieved attributable net profits of RMB 293 million and RMB 282 million, representing year-on-year increases of 16.42% and 12.53%, respectively. Meanwhile, Jinfаi Technology, Shengquan Group, and Tongcheng New Materials achieved attributable net profits of RMB 1.07B, RMB 760 million, and RMB 494 million in the first three quarters of 2025, representing year-on-year increases of 55.86%, 30.81%, and 12.65%, respectively.

Jinfаi Technology’s basic business in modified plastics remains solid

Entering the humanoid robot field

As the “number one modified plastics stock” that went public in 2004, Jinfаi Technology is the world’s largest modified plastics producer by scale, with the most complete range of products. According to its 2024 performance announcement, the company has already formed 3.72 million tons/year of modified plastics production capacity; its production and sales volume ranks first in the industry. Its products are used across multiple fields including automobiles, home appliances, electronics and electrical engineering, consumer electronics, and new energy, among others.

In addition, as a listed company that indirectly holds a stake in Unitree Technology, some of Jinfаi Technology’s new materials products under the company already have a supply layout in the humanoid robot sector. According to the company’s financial reports and publicly available information, Jinfаi Technology has been actively expanding into emerging areas such as humanoid robots, quadruped robots, and the low-altitude economy. The company’s ultra-high-temperature-resistant, wear-resistant PPA (high-temperature nylon) and PEEK (polyether ether ketone) materials developed by the company have already been applied in key components of humanoid robots and robot dogs. The company has also established a research and development team for humanoid robot materials, and has conducted material co-development with related downstream customers; some customers have achieved mass supply of materials. Although it is expected that in the short term the robot industry will contribute limitedly to the company’s performance, in the long run, the humanoid robot industry is expected to become a new important downstream application industry.

Over the past two years, Jinfаi Technology’s performance has continued to grow. After its net profit doubled growth in 2024, in the first three quarters of 2025, Jinfаi Technology’s attributable net profit saw a year-on-year increase of more than 50%. The company attributes its performance growth to optimized product structure and expansion of overseas business, as well as new materials achieving dual breakthroughs in both technology and the market.

In recent years, Jinfаi Technology has centered its business on the modified plastics segment, with four core business segments developing in coordination. Looking back at the first half of 2025, Jinfаi Technology’s four business segments—modified plastics, green petrochemicals, new materials, and healthcare—each recorded revenues of RMB 16.47B, RMB 5.96B, RMB 1.99B, and RMB 468 million, respectively. The year-on-year growth rates of revenue were 18.62%, 49.23%, 28.15%, and 186.11%, respectively.

During that period, as the pillar business with a revenue share of 52.07%, the modified plastics segment’s sales volume reached a new high. In the first half of 2025, the company’s sales volume of modified plastics finished products was 1.3088 million tons, up 19.74% year over year. Jinfаi Technology said that in terms of operating conditions of the modified plastics segment, the company seized opportunities arising from the “upgrading of the new energy industry,” the “Two New” policies, “the low-altitude economy,” and “AI intelligence.” It deepened cooperation with leading companies across global industries, rode the momentum to accelerate overseas expansion, and actively developed emerging fields such as intelligent robots and low-altitude flying vehicles. As a result, product sales continued to rise, with particularly steady growth in sales in industries such as automobiles, new energy, and electronics and electrical engineering.

Jinfаi Technology attaches great importance to R&D innovation. In recent years, the company’s R&D expense ratio has remained around 4%. In the first three quarters of 2025, the company’s R&D expenses were RMB 1.99B, up 24.07% year over year. Continuous R&D innovation helps the company maintain its technological advantages. As of the end of 2024, the company had applied for a total of 6,813 patents domestically and internationally, and the number of patents it has obtained is among the leading positions in the industry. In the fields of fully biodegradable plastics, special engineering plastics, carbon fiber and composites, the company’s product technology and product quality have reached internationally advanced levels.

With domestic modified plastics companies increasingly building overseas plants to bypass trade barriers and get closer to overseas end markets, Jinfаi Technology is also accelerating the localization of its overseas supply chain system. The company has established production bases in the United States, Germany, India, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Spain, and meanwhile its plants in Mexico and Poland are also under preparation.

In recent years, the scale of Jinfаi Technology’s overseas business has continued to grow. From 2018 to 2024, the company’s overseas business sales volumes grew from over 70k tons to 233.5k tons. Overseas revenue grew from RMB 4.2 billion to RMB 70k. In the first half of 2025, the results of the company’s globalization strategy were evident. During that period, overseas business achieved sales volume of 161k tons of finished products, up 33.17% year over year. Overseas regional revenue was RMB 233.5k, up 21.03% year over year.

AI demand continues to show high levels of enthusiasm

Shengquan Group’s electronic chemicals continue to expand in volume

Shengquan Group is a high-tech enterprise whose main business involves R&D, production, and sales of chemical new materials and biomass new materials, as well as products related to new energy. The company’s phenolic resins and furan resins rank first in China and among the top in the world by production and sales scale.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Shengquan Group’s attributable net profit increased by 30.81% year over year to RMB 760 million. During that period, the company’s core products’ production and sales volumes grew, especially for advanced electronic materials and battery materials, which—driven by the growth in domestic and overseas AI server demand and the company’s capacity being put into operation—saw sustained expansion in production and sales, boosting performance growth.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Shengquan Group’s advanced electronic materials and battery materials, as well as synthetic resins, achieved sales volumes of 61.1 thousand tons and 588.7 thousand tons, respectively, and 6.11 thousand tons and 58.87 thousand tons? (No—preserve original:) 61.1k吨 and 588.7k吨; and synthetic resins? (The line specifies: 合成树脂实现销量61.1k吨、588.7k吨，同比增长19.01%、13.90%；) and sales revenue of RMB 8.79B and RMB 161k, up 32.23% and 4.64%, respectively.

As one of the segments with leading growth in both sales volume and revenue, in electronic materials the company’s investor relations activity record table disclosed in 2025 shows that Shengquan Group is the largest supplier of electronic chemical materials domestically in fields such as high-performance copper-clad laminates (CCL), printed circuit board (PCB) inks, and semiconductor packaging molding compounds. Currently, it has 100 tons/year of super carbon-hydrogen resin capacity and 1,300 tons/year—1,800 tons/year of polyphenylene ether capacity, enabling it to provide resin products across the full range of M6/M7/M8/M9.

At the same time, Shengquan Group is targeting the demand for AI computing power and advancing high-end electronic resin key projects in an orderly manner. The company will continuously increase R&D investment to accelerate product iteration and upgrades to meet customer needs. Currently, the company has launched the 2,000 tons/year PPO/OPE resin project, the 1,500 tons/year carbon-hydrogen resin project, and the 1,000 tons/year bismate resin project. It is expected that they will be completed and commence operations in sequence in the third quarter of 2026.

In battery materials, silicon-based anodes are regarded as the next generation of ideal anode materials and are expected to gradually replace conventional graphite anodes in the future. Based on this, leveraging the global market leadership of its phenolic resin products as well as mature biomass refining technology, the company developed phenolic-resin-based porous carbon materials that realize optimized uniformity of silane deposition, significantly improving the energy density of silicon-carbon anode batteries. The company has worked in collaboration with silicon-carbon companies to develop silicon-carbon materials in multiple categories such as low swelling with high first efficiency, long cycle life, high capacity, and others.

At present, Shengquan Group plans to issue convertible bonds to seize the silicon-carbon anode market. According to the company’s convertible bond prospectus (revised draft) disclosed in February 2026, the company plans to issue convertible corporate bonds to unspecified eligible parties. The total amount of funds to be raised shall not exceed RMB 2.5 billion (including RMB 2.5 billion). Of this, RMB 2.0 billion will be invested in a green new energy battery materials industrialization project. After the project is completed, it is expected to produce 10,000 tons per year of silicon-carbon anode materials and 15,000 tons per year of porous carbon. Among them, 4,883 tons of porous carbon will be used to continue producing silicon-carbon anode materials. The theoretical specific capacity of silicon-carbon materials can reach up to 4200mAh/g, which is more than 10 times that of traditional graphite anode materials, and their fast-charging performance is also excellent. With the upgrading of consumer electronics products and the increasing requirements of new energy vehicles for driving range, silicon-carbon anodes, due to their ability to enhance battery energy density, have become a direction for future anode material upgrades. This project can reinforce the company’s leading advantages in the battery materials sub-sectors and is also conducive to creating new performance growth drivers, thereby safeguarding the company’s core competitiveness in battery materials.

Worth noting is that in the field of synthetic resins, Shengquan Group’s phenolic resin products have already been applied to aerospace materials. According to the company’s financial report, the multi-purpose phenolic resin product developed by Shengquan Group has ten series and more than 800 varieties. Currently, the company’s capacity reaches 648.6 thousand tons/year, and its scale and technological level are among the best in the world. The company was rated as a National Manufacturing Single Champion Demonstration Enterprise (phenolic resins), and was recognized by China’s electronic materials industry as one of the professional top ten. It is also a supplier of thermal insulation and insulation materials for the “Shenzhou” series of spacecraft and the “Rejuvenation” (Fuxing) high-speed trains according to China’s standards.

Tongcheng New Materials’ electronic chemicals achieve breakthroughs on multiple fronts

Photoresist revenue grows rapidly

As a globally leading new materials integrated service provider, Tongcheng New Materials’ business covers three major core areas: rubber chemicals for automobile tires, electronic chemicals, and fully biodegradable materials. The company’s financial reports show that in the rubber chemicals for automobile tires segment, the company is the world’s largest supplier of special phenolic resins for tire rubber and maintains a leading position as a sector leader. In the electronic chemicals segment, the company is a domestic leading semiconductor photoresist manufacturer; it is also the largest domestic mass-production supplier of deep-ultraviolet KrF photoresist, and the domestic first TFT-LCD Array photoresist manufacturer, as well as the domestic largest local supplier of positive liquid crystal photoresist.

In terms of capacity, as of the mid-2025 period, Tongcheng New Materials has 8,000 tons of flat-panel photoresist production capacity at the Qianjiang base. The projects for 11k tons/year of photoresists for semiconductors and display and 20k tons of supporting reagents have been partially completed. After commissioning, it will further reinforce the company’s position as a sector leader. For fully biodegradable materials, the 60k tons/year Phase I biodegradable biomass materials project in the Shanghai Chemical Industry Park has been completed, and the company is actively expanding high value-added markets both domestically and overseas.

In the first three quarters of 2025, Tongcheng New Materials’ attributable net profit increased by 12.65% year over year to RMB 494 million. According to the company’s disclosed operating data announcement, during that period, the average procurement price of the company’s main raw material phenol was RMB 6,345.29 per ton, down 10.33% year over year, which helps reduce cost pressure.

In terms of product mix, based on solid performance in the traditional rubber chemicals business, the electronic chemicals business has achieved significant growth. In the first three quarters of 2025, the company’s sales volumes of special rubber additives and others, electronic chemicals, and fully biodegradable materials were 118.3 thousand tons, 13.0 thousand tons, and 7.3 thousand tons, respectively, up 1.00%, 8.09%, and 97.73% year over year. The corresponding operating revenues for the aforementioned segments were RMB 5.06B, RMB 701 million, and RMB 64 million, respectively, with year-on-year changes of -4.50%, 29.20%, and 65.87%.

During that period, the company’s electronic chemicals segment contributed 27.79% of revenue, an increase of about 5.4 percentage points from the same period last year. From the perspective of product pricing, because the proportion of value-added products has increased, in the first three quarters of 2025 Tongcheng New Materials’ electronic chemicals business also became the only segment among its three major product series that saw an increase in price. The average selling price in this segment was RMB 53,944.27 per ton, up 19.53% year over year.

In fact, Tongcheng New Materials’ electronic chemicals under the company’s umbrella are running on multiple product lines at the same time. The company leverages internal and external resources integrated by its wholly-owned subsidiary Tongcheng Electronic to build an electronic chemicals industrialization platform. The electronic chemicals business mainly covers semiconductor photoresists and supporting reagents, display photoresists, electronic resins, CMP polishing pads, and other products.

Looking back at the first half of 2025, besides consolidating the advantages of its traditional mainstay business in rubber chemicals for automobile tires, its semiconductor photoresists and display photoresists were especially prominent. In the semiconductor photoresist segment, in the first half of 2025, the company’s semiconductor photoresist business achieved operating revenue of nearly RMB 200 million, up more than 50% year over year, and its growth rate has been above 50% for two consecutive years. In terms of product structure, new product series such as ArF photoresist, KrF photoresist, anti-reflective coating, EBR, and others have passed validation by multiple domestic customers and have started to gradually achieve conversion from qualification to mass production ramp-up.

At the same time, the company’s photoresist products performed steadily. In the first half of 2025, it achieved sales revenue of RMB 180 million, up 13.6% year over year; sales volume also increased, with a year-on-year growth rate of 12.5%. In terms of market share, the product’s domestic market share is about 29%, maintaining a position as the second-largest supplier in China.

At present, the validation progress of the company’s CMP polishing pad project is going smoothly and is expected to continue expanding in volume. Tongcheng New Materials’ subsidiary Tongcheng Electronic invested in 2024 to build a semiconductor chip polishing pad production base. After the project reaches smooth operations, it can produce 250k advanced polishing pads for semiconductor chips per year. As of mid-2025, the project had completed production-line construction and product production validation, and began validation with leading domestic chip companies in a gradual manner. The validation progress has been smooth, and the company has received its first formal CMP polishing pad orders from key customers with 8-inch and 12-inch wafers, realizing mass production and shipment of CMP polishing pads.

(This article has been published in Securities Market Weekly on March 21. The individual stocks mentioned in the article are only for illustrative analysis and do not constitute investment advice.)