Antai Textile: AI Empowers Smart Textiles, Leading New Trends in Acrylic Yarn through Technological Innovation

(Main text) By the banks of the Yangtze River in Zhangjiagang, Jiangsu Province, in the production workshop of Antai Textile, rolls of brightly colored acrylic sliver are slowly output from the intelligent production line. Robotic arms neatly stack them with precision, and the flowing data on the screen displays real-time parameters such as tension and color fastness of each meter of yarn – this is the daily scene of the "AI Quality Traceability System" that Factory Director Huang from the Production Department has recently been debugging with his team. "In the past, one production line required 3 quality inspectors to take shifts monitoring color numbers. Now the system can automatically compare with the color card database and issue an alert if the deviation exceeds 0.5%. Efficiency has increased by 40%, and customer complaint rates have dropped by nearly 70%," said Factory Director Huang, wiping the sweat from his forehead and pointing to the curves on the screen with a smile. "This is all thanks to the 'smart inspiration' that Manager Li brought back from Guangzhou."

The "smart inspiration" mentioned by Factory Director Huang originated from the 2025 First China Textile and Apparel Artificial Intelligence Conference that Li Xiong, Marketing Manager, attended at the beginning of the month. "Experts at the conference mentioned that the 'pain points' of the traditional textile industry are shifting from 'having it or not' to 'being good or not', especially for sports brands, which have increasingly high requirements for material functionality and design," Li Xiong flipped through the meeting notes on his phone, his fingertips pausing on a set of data: the outdoor brand under Anta saw a 50-55% growth in quarterly turnover in the second quarter, and Xtep's high-end running shoe brand Saucony grew by over 20%. "These brands want to make lightweight, high-elastic outdoor apparel. Our acrylic yarn inherently has the advantages of good warmth retention and light weight, plus the texture design of fancy yarn – isn't that exactly hitting the demand point?"

This discovery prompted Li Xiong to immediately take the R&D team to immerse themselves in the sample room. Targeting the "lightweight and warm" demand of high-end sportswear, they adjusted the fiber fineness of the original acrylic yarn from 1.5D to 1.2D, while adding a spiral fancy yarn structure, which not only retains the bulkiness of acrylic but also improves the breathability of the fabric. "Feel this," Li Xiong picked up a roll of gray-blue yarn and handed it to the reporter. "This is the 'Cloud-feel Yarn' customized for an outdoor brand. It is directly spun using our colored acrylic sliver, eliminating the subsequent dyeing process. Its color fastness is 3 grades higher than traditional processes. It has already passed their tests and will be mass-supplied next month."

On the production side, Factory Director Huang's team is converting this "market insight" into tangible production capacity. "Manager Li said that textile exports from Vietnam increased by 13.5% year-on-year in June, and Southeast Asian customers have been inquiring a lot recently, especially for colored acrylic sliver. They find local dyeing costs high, and our 'one-step' coloring process just solves this pain point," Factory Director Huang led the reporter to the newly commissioned intelligent color matching workshop, where several color matching machines equipped with AI algorithms were automatically mixing color pastes. "In the past, adjusting a new color number required 3-5 trials. Now, the system can directly generate a formula based on the color card photo provided by the customer. The one-time success rate has increased from 60% to 92%, and the delivery cycle has been shortened from 15 days to 7 days."

Faced with the pressure of rising cotton prices since July (the National Cotton Price B Index rose by 1.8% this week), Antai Textile's "acrylic advantage" has become increasingly prominent. "As a chemical fiber raw material, acrylic has smaller price fluctuations than cotton, and we have signed long-term agreements with upstream acrylonitrile suppliers, so cost control is relatively stable," Li Xiong explained. "Recently, many old customers in home textiles have been increasing their procurement ratio of acrylic yarn. After all, in terms of warmth retention, acrylic is close to wool, but the price is only one-third of wool – it's very appealing for brands pursuing 'high cost performance'."

From just a few traditional spinning lines when it was founded in 1993 to now being a benchmark enterprise in acrylic products with 20 intelligent production lines and an annual capacity of over 10,000 tons, Antai Textile's 30 years are a microcosm of China's textile industry shifting from "scale expansion" to "quality breakthrough". "We also went to the job fair in Urumqi last month and brought back more than 20 young people majoring in textile engineering," Li Xiong looked at the busy young technicians in the workshop, his eyes shining. "The industry is changing. With the new ideas and technologies brought by young people, plus our 30 years of accumulated craftsmanship, what Antai wants to do is not just 'follow trends', but more importantly 'create trends' – making every acrylic yarn weave the future that the market needs."

In the sunset, a truck loaded with colored acrylic sliver slowly drives out of the factory gate. The slogan on the truck body – "Antai Textile – Making Colors More Vivid, Making Fabrics Warmer" – stands out particularly in the afterglow. This is perhaps the secret of an established textile enterprise to survive cycles: taking the market as the eye and technology as the feet, steadily stepping on the rhythm of the times at every crossroads of industry transformation.