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In the past few years, the domestic AMHS semiconductor automation logistics track has experienced an unprecedented wave of capital. A large number of cross-border enterprises swarmed in, pushing prices down and increasing projects, but the industry has not become more mature. On the contrary, some factories have become "test grounds" for new products, with frequent equipment failures, material drops, and shutdowns.

He Jun, CEO of Gtrontec, feels deeply about this. "Semiconductors are not the Internet. A small failure may affect the entire production line. Why should customers pay for your trial and error?"

In his view, after the capital ebb, the domestic AMHS industry is entering a real reshuffle period. Those who can remain in the future will not be companies that compete on low prices, but those who truly respect industry rules and insist on long-term R&D.

Domestic substitution in the semiconductor industry requires long-termism

For a long time, AMHS has been dominated by overseas companies. After the domestic substitution boom, many companies quickly entered this track, hoping to achieve breakthroughs through the capital window.

But He Jun believes that the real problem is not whether more companies enter, but whether the industry has truly established independent R&D capabilities. "Many companies have made dozens of devices and think they have achieved domestic breakthroughs. But semiconductors are not an assembly industry. What really determines competitiveness is the long-term accumulated algorithms, software, core components, and engineering experience."

In his view, the biggest hidden worry of the industry in the past few years is that many companies rely on low prices to get orders, and then use customer sites to continuously trial and error and iterate products. This model not only puts customers at risk but also drags the entire industry into a cycle of "low-price competition - no profit - inability to sustain R&D."

As the financing environment tightens, this model is losing its space to survive. "The industry will eventually return to rationality. Those who can truly survive the cycle must be companies willing to invest in long-term R&D, not those seeking quick money."

Compared to rapid catch-up, Gtrontec chose a slower path. After entering the AMHS field, the company was not eager to pursue product quantity, but chose to start with Stocker, continuously improving product reliability, and then gradually extending to whole-factory logistics solutions.

He Jun admitted that the first-generation product still lags behind international standards, but the team did not rush to commercialize it, instead continuing to iterate and optimize. "Semiconductor customers will not lower their standards just because you are a domestic brand. The real domestic substitution is not about making equipment, but achieving reliability that customers are willing to use long-term."

Now, the company's products have served many leading wafer manufacturing and advanced packaging and testing companies in China. More importantly, many customers continue to choose to cooperate with Gtrontec when expanding production. "The first cooperation may come from trust, but the second cooperation is true recognition."

In He Jun's view, customers' continuous repurchases are more convincing than any publicity.

What AI Changes is Not Just Logistics Efficiency, but the Factory's Decision-Making Mode

Compared to equipment localization, He Jun is more concerned about another ongoing change - industrial AI. In the past few years, AI has become the hottest topic in manufacturing. But He Jun does not think AI is just adding a smart module to AMHS. In his view, the real change comes from decision-making. "Traditional logistics systems solve how to execute stably, while AI solves how to make autonomous decisions."

In the past, logistics systems relied more on fixed rules. Once production rhythm changed, equipment anomalies occurred, or logistics congestion happened, manual intervention was needed. AI can continuously analyze the status of production, equipment, and logistics operations, autonomously optimize transportation routes, resource scheduling, and exception handling, enabling the entire logistics system to continuously learn and self-optimize. "In the past, logistics helped customers save money; in the future, logistics is more important to help customers make money."

He Jun believes that the real gap between future semiconductor factories will no longer be just equipment performance, but whether the entire factory can have the ability to continuously optimize and make autonomous decisions. This is also the value of industrial AI entering the manufacturing site.

Because of this, Gtrontec has been continuously promoting software-hardware integration in recent years, continuously improving the autonomous decision-making ability of the logistics system through industrial AI, making logistics gradually evolve from an execution tool to an important part of factory intelligent decision-making.

Next-generation AMHS: Not Just Automation, but Embodied Intelligence and Physical AI

If AI is changing the brain of the logistics system, then the next stage, He Jun hopes, can also change the "body." He believes that the future development direction of AMHS will no longer be just robots executing instructions, but possessing the ability of autonomous perception, autonomous judgment, and autonomous coordination. "In the future, every handling equipment should not only move but also think."

Currently, Gtrontec's AMHS business is continuously deploying around embodied intelligence and physical AI, further embedding AI capabilities into the logistics equipment itself, enabling equipment to autonomously make local decisions based on the site environment, and operate in coordination with the factory's intelligent scheduling center, truly achieving "remote planning, local decision-making." In He Jun's view, this means AMHS will move from a traditional automation system to a new generation of smart logistics system with continuous learning and autonomous collaboration capabilities, and will also become an important landing point for industrial AI to enter the real physical world.

At the same time, the company is also accelerating its global layout. Compared to the past focus on equipment performance, more and more overseas customers are beginning to pay attention to the efficiency improvement that AI can bring, which also gives Chinese companies the first opportunity to not just catch up, but to participate in defining next-generation products under the new technology paradigm.

The Real "Flag Bearer" of the Industry is the One Who Accompanies the Industry for Twenty or Thirty Years

When talking about the future, He Jun repeatedly mentioned a word - long-termism. He believes that AMHS is not an industry that can achieve breakthroughs in three to five years, but requires continuous accumulation of twenty or thirty years. From core technology to engineering experience, from supply chain to customer trust, all need time to settle. "The enterprises that can truly carry the development of domestic AMHS in the future must first have the ability to invest long-term; second, truly master core R&D capabilities; and finally, have clean, independent intellectual property rights."

He said that Gtrontec, backed by its industrial background, insists on independent R&D, not for short-term competition, but to truly solve the long-standing key technical problems of China's semiconductors. "Our goal is not to defeat anyone, but to truly solve the problem where China's semiconductors are stuck."

At the end of the interview, He Jun once again mentioned the thing he cares most about. He hopes that in the future when the industry discusses domestic AMHS, the focus will no longer be on who has a lower price, but who can truly promote continuous industry progress. "The real flag bearer of the industry is not the one who shouts the loudest, but the one who can persist in long-term investment, continuously break through technical boundaries, and stand up when the industry needs it most."

From domestic equipment to smart logistics driven by industrial AI, to global market competition, in He Jun's view, the real opportunity for China's semiconductor logistics has never been just to complete a domestic substitution, but to establish the discourse power of Chinese enterprises in the new round of industrial transformation with original technology.