When a piece of knitted fabric can simultaneously monitor heart rate, transmit data, and deliver micro-current stimulation, it is no longer a traditional textile but a wearable smart terminal. The Exchange Meeting on Intelligent Knitted Fabric Technology and Future Applications, held on August 19 in Puyuan, Tongxiang, Zhejiang, showcased this shift: from AI-driven knitting to robotic electronic skin, the technical coordinates of the knitting industry are being redefined.
Background
Puyuan is one of the most influential knitting clusters in China, and the choice of venue was deliberate—bringing the most traditional industrial belt face-to-face with cutting-edge technology. At the meeting, foreign academician Seeram Ramakrishna analyzed technical paths for non-invasive health monitoring through nanofibers and smart wearables, while representatives from EPFL presented the potential of thermal-drawn multifunctional fibers in flexible electronics. Multidisciplinary integration has become a defining feature of industry innovation, pushing knitting beyond apparel into medical and robotic fields.
Xie Qing, president of the China Knitting Industry Association, offered a key insight: future knitted fabrics will evolve into native flexible electronic systems integrating sensing, signal transmission, micro-energy storage, and feedback control, achieving "yarn as device, fabric as terminal." This implies that the core competitiveness of traditional knitting enterprises will shift from "weaving density and speed" to "weaving intelligence." For industrial belts like Puyuan, this is both a transformation pressure and an opportunity to enter high-value-added sectors.
Industry Impact
The signals from the meeting have direct implications across the supply chain. For upstream yarn suppliers, demand for differentiated products such as conductive and sensing yarns will rise significantly. For equipment makers, the combination of precision knitting machinery and AI algorithms becomes a new selling point. Li Lijun, vice president of Ningbo Cixing Co., introduced AI-empowered practices that have already applied precision knitting to medical textiles and robotic electronic skin, proving that industrialization is not just a concept.
Notably, health-monitoring electronic fabric devices developed by Qingdao University have been used in the National Astronaut Training Center and China Rehabilitation Science Institute. This indicates that domestic capability in high-end medical textiles has moved beyond the lab. For buyers, this means future procurement of medical textiles will no longer be limited to traditional nonwovens; smart knitted products will gradually enter tender lists, reshaping supply chains.
From a market perspective, with the deepening of the "AI+" initiative, the intersection of smart wearables and medical health will sustain rapid growth. Traditional clusters like Puyuan could become key origins of flexible electronic textiles if they accelerate technology transfer through industry-academia collaboration. However, gaps remain in core areas such as fiber integrated circuits and sensing yarns, and insufficient cross-industry coordination may slow industrialization.