China's home textile and fabric industry is at a critical juncture: on one hand, Keqiao's curtain and fabric sector boasts an annual output value of nearly 70 billion yuan and cross-border online trade of 800-900 million USD, showing a solid industrial base; on the other hand, declining real estate, rising raw material costs, and export volume growth with price decline are squeezing profits. Against this backdrop, the 2026 China Home Textile Association Fabric Branch Annual Meeting held in Keqiao sent a clear signal: to escape the internal volume war, the industry must redefine growth through design, technology, and AI.
Data Behind the Industry
Keqiao, known as 'an economic powerhouse carried on a piece of cloth,' saw its China Light Textile City transaction volume exceed 440 billion yuan in 2025, with nearly 8,000 local curtain and fabric enterprises. These figures underscore the cluster effect, but the meeting also revealed concerns: first-half profits were under pressure, and exports showed volume growth with price decline. What does this mean? For buyers, low-price competition may offer short-term gains but will squeeze suppliers' R&D investment, ultimately harming product quality. For factories, simply scaling production is no longer viable; they must find new value anchors.
Another noteworthy figure is the 300 million people with sleep disorders, highlighted by brand consultant Lin Shaowu. When functionality meets healing colors and layered textures, fabric products upgrade from simple shading to health solutions. This refined demand side is precisely the breakthrough to escape homogenization.
Design Breakthrough and AI Empowerment: Two Main Lines
Among the four major sections, 'original design breakthrough' and 'AI-empowered digitalization' drew the most attention. Lin Shaowu addressed the price war, advocating a return to real home scenarios and building a product matrix of image, profit, and traffic models—essentially turning design from a cost item into brand equity. Professor Ji Feng from Donghua University presented more concrete technologies: AI-based intelligent color matching to solve digital printing color differences, and CNN deep learning for non-destructive fabric composition identification using fiber polarized light image libraries, replacing traditional chemical tests. These are no longer lab concepts but tools ready for industrial transfer to curtain enterprises.
AI's application extends beyond detection. Collov AI's 'spatial AI' concept uses world models for space parsing, material replacement, and one-click realistic scene generation, drastically cutting sampling and photography costs. For contract soft furnishing, which requires frequent bidding, AI-standardized solutions significantly boost competitiveness. Notably, fabric physical data was repeatedly emphasized as a long-term core asset—reminding factories and traders to start accumulating digital assets now, or risk losing eligibility for future competition.
New Overseas Channels: Traffic Dividends and Industrial Cluster Traceability
Media company Modeng's TikTok data is encouraging: the platform covers over 150 countries with 2 billion monthly active users, and home furnishing categories in Southeast Asia and Latin America are growing fastest globally. Keqiao industrial cluster traceability livestreams, immersive short videos, and local influencer collaborations mean cross-border e-commerce is no longer limited to B2B bulk trade; it can now reach C-end consumers through content commerce. However, going overseas is not just 'putting goods on a platform'; it requires a three-tier product matrix of basic, functional, and co-branded items, plus localized operations.
Practical Recommendations
For Buyers - Prioritize suppliers with AI color matching and digital detection capabilities for better quality stability. - Focus on certifications and test reports for functional fabrics (temperature control, antibacterial), which are key to differentiated sourcing. - Use platform trend data (e.g., TikTok) for reverse product selection, entering high-growth markets like Southeast Asia and Latin America early.
For Factories - Start building a physical fabric database—the foundation for future AI applications and brand partnerships. - Try AI-assisted design sampling to reduce small-batch customization costs and improve responsiveness to brands. - Explore university-industry collaborations to turn technologies like phase-change temperature control and nano-modification into product selling points.
Conclusion
The key takeaway from the Keqiao meeting: the home textile industry will not shrink due to real estate downturn, but will accelerate consolidation due to technological iteration and consumption upgrades. Enterprises that integrate design, AI, and green manufacturing into daily operations will take the lead in the next five-year cycle. For the entire chain, shifting from 'scale advantage' to 'quality and brand advantage' is not a slogan but requires concrete action in every color match, every meter of fabric, and every livestream.