Antai Textile: 30 Years of Intelligent Manufacturing Breakthrough Empowered by Technology, Weaving a New Legend in the Textile Industry with Smart Yarns
In Zhangjiagang in July, as the summer heat intensifies, the production workshop of Antai Textile is abuzz with orderly busyness – intelligent sorting robotic arms accurately grasp the newly produced colored acrylic sliver, and over 20 testing data such as yarn strength and color fastness跳动实时 on the electronic screen. Factory Director Huang from the Production Department is discussing the curves on the screen with Li Xiong, the Marketing Manager: "Look at this set of data. Since we fully rolled out the AI process optimization system last month, the batch qualification rate of acrylic yarn has increased by another 0.8 percentage points, and customer feedback satisfaction with 'handfeel consistency' has risen by 12%."
Li Xiong had just returned from Guangzhou after attending the 2025 First China Textile and Apparel Artificial Intelligence Conference, with keywords like "intelligent manufacturing", "digital twin", and "flexible production" filling his notebook. "At this conference, many peers were saying that 'the second half of the textile industry is a technological competition'. I immediately thought of the newly renovated intelligent production lines in our workshop," he said, pulling out photos from his phone. "Look, this is a design draft from a brand client in Guangzhou. They wanted a batch of 'starry sky gradient' fancy yarns. Previously, such customized orders would take at least 7 days for sampling, but now with the AI color matching system and intelligent yarn adjustment module, we can produce samples in 3 days. We secured an order for 5,000 spindles last week."
This "technology-empowered" transformation is an inevitable choice for Antai Textile, founded in 1993, after over 30 years of in-depth industry cultivation. From the initial traditional spinning workshop to now a professional manufacturer of acrylic products with 3 intelligent production lines and an annual capacity of over 10,000 tons, every step of Antai Textile has kept in tune with the industry pulse. "We started laying out intelligent transformation in 2018. At that time, many peers thought 'old textiles don't need to折腾', but Manager Li and the marketing team visited clients in 17 cities and came back to tell us, 'Now brands want more than just yarn; they want solutions that can quickly respond to trends and stably deliver quality'," Director Huang pointed to the R&D laboratory in the corner of the workshop. "That's when we made up our minds to invest 5% of annual revenue into R&D. Now the laboratory holds 12 patents, among which the 'dope-dyed acrylic sliver' technology saves 60% water and reduces carbon emissions by 30% compared to traditional dyeing processes. It also won the Jiangsu Provincial Green Manufacturing Demonstration Project last year."
Such technological accumulation has put Antai Textile in a particularly calm position in the recently recovering textile manufacturing market. According to the SW Textile and Apparel Index from July 11 to 18, the textile manufacturing sector rose by 2.4%, outperforming the broader market by 1.1 percentage points, reflecting market confidence in high-quality manufacturing enterprises. "This rise is no accident," Li Xiong analyzed. "Our data tracking shows that in the first half of this year, demand for acrylic products with both environmental friendliness and design sense increased by 15% year-on-year, especially for colored acrylic sliver and fancy yarns. Many clients in luxury home textiles and outdoor apparel have orders scheduled until the third quarter." He mentioned an order delivered last month: "A Zhejiang outdoor brand wanted to make 'lightweight thermal jackets', specifying our high-loft acrylic yarn. This yarn is 20% lighter than ordinary acrylic and has 15% better thermal insulation. It took the laboratory team 8 months to adjust the fiber ratio and spinning tension to develop it."
On the other end of the industrial chain, the industry's exploration of 'new materials' has also opened up new opportunities for Antai Textile. On July 14, Jilin Chemical Fiber Group announced a breakthrough in the new materials field, with its developed high-performance fibers successfully applied to large offshore wind turbine blades, which deeply inspired Li Xiong and the R&D team. "Although our main acrylic fibers are different from industrial high-performance fibers, the logic of 'material innovation driving application expansion' is the same," Li Xiong revealed. They are currently collaborating with the Textile Research Institute of Jiangnan University to develop 'antibacterial acrylic sliver'. "Targeting the maternal and infant home textile market, this yarn can inhibit Escherichia coli and Staphylococcus aureus with an antibacterial rate exceeding 99%, and mass production is expected by the end of the year."
Underpinning these innovations is Antai Textile's long-term investment in talent. On July 19, the Urumqi Textile Industry Special Job Fair attracted 32 enterprises offering over 1,000 positions, which reminded Li Xiong of the company's 'mentorship' training system: "Many of the veteran masters in our workshop have been here since the factory was founded. Now the technical backbones born in the 1990s and 2000s are all trained by them hand in hand. Take Xiao Wang, who is responsible for intelligent equipment maintenance. He just won the 'Skilled Talent' title in Zhangjiagang last year, and he led his team to reduce the equipment failure rate to below 0.3%." From 20 employees in 1993 to a professional team of over 200 people now, the stability and growth of talent are the secrets to this established textile enterprise's sustained vitality.
"It's been 30 years, from the first acrylic yarn coming off the production line to now serving over 500 brand clients at home and abroad. We have always believed that textiles are not simply 'spinning fibers into yarn', but using technology and patience to weave market demands and customer expectations into every yarn bit by bit," Director Huang looked at the slowly rotating spindles in the workshop, his tone filled with pride. "Just like this colored acrylic sliver, from raw material proportioning to color masterbatch preparation, and then to spinning process, every link must be meticulous – for the 'sunset orange' that the customer wanted, we adjusted it 23 times to achieve that warm yet not harsh saturation. This is probably the romance of the textile industry."
Today, Antai Textile's acrylic yarns and slivers are exported to over 10 countries in Southeast Asia, Europe, etc., and those fancy yarns infused with warmth and technology are becoming an inspiration carrier for more and more designers. In the wave of the textile industry transforming towards 'technology, green, and fashion', this enterprise from Zhangjiagang is writing its own 'yarn story' with 30 years of persistence and innovation.