High-Quality Development in China | Ten Years of Refining the “Gu” as China’s Oral Care Industry Embarks on a New Journey

CRI Online Chengdu, April 8 (Reporter Chang Sirong, Wang Ying, Tang Shimin): With the in-depth implementation of the “Healthy China 2030” planning outline, oral health has become an important yardstick for measuring the overall level of public health. In the tide of industrial upgrading, the 2026 China Dental Valley Industrial Development Conference opened on April 7 in Ziyang, Sichuan. It is not only a review of the achievements of China Dental Valley’s decade-long intensive cultivation, but also lays out a new blueprint for high-quality development of China’s dental industry. In recent years, local enterprises represented by Ziyang Pingtai Medical have continued to break through technologically on this fertile ground, becoming a vivid example of China’s progress from a “manufacturing giant” to a “smart manufacturing powerhouse” in dental products.

China Dental Valley Sci-Tech Innovation Park (Photo provided by CRI Online; provided by the Ziyang High-Tech Zone Management Committee)

Stepping into the production workshop of Ziyang Pingtai Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., the work areas for processes such as component preparation, assembly of complete units, unit testing and adjustment, packaging, and others are clearly divided. The staff busily carry out their tasks in an orderly manner at their respective posts. In the testing and adjustment area, a technician holds a simulated dental model in one hand and a intraoral scanning product in the other; through repeated checks, they perform data comparisons. 3D digitalized images of the surfaces of soft and hard tissues in the oral cavity are simultaneously shown clearly and intuitively on a nearby computer, providing a better foundation for dental diagnosis and treatment. On the other side, packed intraoral digital impression scanners are lined up neatly, ready to be shipped to locations across the country and even overseas… In 2017, Ziyang Pingtai Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. officially moved into “China Dental Valley.” After six years of deep cultivation, it has “transformed” from a small micro enterprise into a benchmark company for localized, domestically produced digital dental equipment in China.

As it is understood, Pingtai Medical focuses on research and application of three-dimensional imaging technology, and is committed to the R&D and manufacturing of devices such as 3D digital intraoral scanners and dental model scanners. The company has already obtained authorization for more than 40 domestic and international patents. The company’s series of intraoral digital impression scanners not only breaks the dependence of relevant products in China on overseas sources, but also are exported to North America, the European Union, Brazil, and dozens of other countries and regions.

“Through years of development, our plant area has expanded from more than 1,300 square meters to more than 3,800 square meters today. Production capacity has increased significantly. In 2023, capacity doubled compared with 2021, and since then it has continued to grow steadily year by year.” A relevant company负责人 of Ziyang Pingtai Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., He Fuzhong, told reporters.

Inside the production workshop of Ziyang Pingtai Medical Equipment Co., Ltd., workers are assembling and testing and adjusting (Photo by CRI Online reporter Chang Sirong)

The R&D threshold in the dental industry is high, the approval cycle is long, and detection and testing costs are high—these were once the three major pain points restricting the industry’s development. Since the beginning of the construction of China Dental Valley, it has placed scientific and technological innovation and service innovation at the core, and worked to build three major core platforms: the application service center, the inspection and testing center, and the R&D incubation center. It has set up a “national-province-city” integrated green channel for registration and certification, forming a pattern of “Type 1 certificates handled on the same day, Type 2 certificates without queueing, and Type 3 certificates handled smoothly,” reducing the overall product registration time by 60% compared with conventional timeframes.

“Moving into Dental Valley is exactly because we saw the superior business environment here and the professional supporting service system, which provides ample保障 for the company’s technical R&D and production and business operations.” He Fuzhong said. The company’s core competitiveness will always be technological innovation. China Dental Valley has built an end-to-end innovation platform from R&D to transformation, forming an industrial ecosystem of resource sharing, complementary strengths, and coordinated innovation. It not only enhances the international competitiveness of local enterprises, but also drives China’s dental industry to shift from decentralized development to more intensive and high-end transformation. As of December 2025, China Dental Valley has cumulatively obtained 401 medical device product registration (filing) certificates, and innovative achievements continue to emerge.

“Digitalization is an inevitable trend in the development of the dental industry. We will continue to take root in this hot land, keep making breakthroughs, and develop more advanced medical equipment.” When discussing future plans, He Fuzhong is full of confidence.

China Dental Valley Science and Technology Innovation Center (Photo provided by CRI Online; provided by the Ziyang High-Tech Zone Management Committee)

Ten years磨 one sword. Using “China Dental Valley” as a strategic fulcrum, Ziyang has built a nationwide leading cluster of oral and dental medical device industries. From a single blueprint to a billion-yuan scale, here there are already 146 domestic and overseas dental enterprises gathered, forming a complete product matrix of “60+ types of dental equipment across 4 categories and 100+ types of dental materials across 5 categories.” The entire closed-loop of the orthodontics, equipment, and implant whole industry chain has been fully formed. It has realized independent and controllable core products for dental diagnosis and treatment. A total of 424 “Ziyang-made” products are exported to more than 100 countries worldwide, making it the world’s largest production base for clear aligners and intraoral scanners.

The rise of China Dental Valley is not only the clustering of geographic space, but also innovation in development models. And Chinese dental enterprises, represented by Ziyang Pingtai Medical, are sailing forward along the high-quality development track—innovating independently as their sail and building industrial clusters as their oar—breaking through the waves.