From wind turbine blades and high-performance vehicles to fighter jets, drones, aircraft brakes, rocket nozzles, and space launch vehicles, carbon fiber (CF) composites have become an essential material in many markets and applications. On September 21st, the American magazine Aviation Week reported that China, a country that has revolutionized industries such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar energy, and wind power generation, has also noticed this trend.
China has been producing carbon fibers for 25 years. In the early stages, most of the carbon fibers produced in China were used domestically, mainly in golf clubs, bicycles, sports equipment. In recent years, they have been used to strengthen wind turbine blades, which has become the largest market for carbon fibers.
According to Aviation Week, Chinese-manufactured carbon fibers were previously considered to be of inferior quality compared to products from leading manufacturers like Japanese Toray. Toray supplies composite materials for Boeing's 787 aircraft and is one of the largest and technically advanced carbon fiber producers in the world. Additionally, American company Hexcel also produces composite materials for the A350.
The article argues that for many years, China’s access to higher-quality carbon fibers from Japanese and American producers has been restricted by export controls. Therefore, it is not surprising that carbon fibers began to appear in China’s industrial policies about six years ago, and they were considered a key strategic material.
It is currently unclear how much funding China has invested in this field. However, over the past three years, Chinese carbon fiber manufacturers have significantly expanded their production capacity, and now they occupy two of the top five positions in the global carbon fiber manufacturing industry. By 2023, China will also start exporting carbon fiber.
After establishing a "quantity strategy," Chinese manufacturers began to move towards higher-quality carbon fiber products about a year ago. At the JEC World 2026 composites exhibition held in Paris in March this year, China's state-owned carbon fiber manufacturer Zhongfu Shenying announced that it has started producing small batches of carbon fiber with performance comparable to Toray's T1200 product, with a production volume of approximately 100 tons. T1200 is one of the world's top-performing carbon fiber products.
At the press conference on the development of industry and information technology in the first half of 2026 held by the State Council Information Office, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology listed breakthroughs in the preparation process of T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fibers, the recovery of the Long March 10 B carrier rocket, and second-generation blade batteries along with megawatt fast charging systems as major innovative achievements.
Industry insiders analyze that this means a breakthrough has been made in the manufacturing process of T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fibers. According to information from the official website of Zhongfu Shenying, as the world’s first T1200-grade carbon fiber that has achieved engineering-scale mass production in quantities of up to 100 tons, SYT80 meets industry-leading standards in performance.
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According to the Economic Reference Report, T1200-grade ultra-high-strength carbon fiber can be described as the strongest material available on the surface, being both light and extremely strong. The diameter of each individual fiber is only one-tenth the thickness of a human hair. Its tensile strength is 10 times that of ordinary steel, while its density is only one-fourth that of steel. This material boasts excellent mechanical properties, resistance to high temperatures, corrosion, and fatigue. A bundle of 12K carbon fiber filaments consists of 12,000 individual fibers. This material, as thick as a finger, can lift an aircraft with a total weight of about 80 tons.
Subsequently, in July of this year, Zhongfu Shenying announced the opening of a new production line, which will produce carbon fibers in three grades. The capacity is 30,000 tons. One of the products is said to be equivalent to Toray's T1100 product. The company stated that the investment for this project amounts to $893 million, making it the largest carbon fiber production project in the composite materials industry with a single startup.
The core issue is that carbon fiber has become a “powerful material”. It can create structures that other materials cannot achieve, at least in terms of cost and efficiency. The higher the quality of carbon fiber, the higher the performance of the products made from it.
Chinese companies are clearly aware of this as well. They wish to be among the world’s leading manufacturers of composite materials structures with advanced technology. The article cites China Commercial Aircraft Corporation and its ongoing development of the next-generation commercial aircraft models C929 and C939. As a state-owned aircraft manufacturer, China Commercial Aircraft Corporation certainly understands what it takes to achieve technological parity and to break the dominance of Boeing and Airbus as the two leading players in this industry.
The speed and scale of China's carbon fiber production expansion, especially the expansion into the high-strength carbon fiber field, send a strong signal: whether for commercial aircraft, missile systems, drones, rocket bodies, satellites, or other fields, China is determined to achieve self-sufficiency in carbon fiber production.
The reasoning here is simple: underestimating China's willingness and ability to expand rapidly comes at one's own risk.
