World Economic Forum adds 16 new sites to Global Lighthouse Network as AI, sustainability reshape industry

The announcement dropped in Dalian, China, on June 22, 2026, alongside the Annual Meeting of the New Champions. The newly recognized sites span China, India, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, covering everything from pharma and automotive to heavy industry and logistics. What sets these facilities apart is that they’ve moved past the "pilot phase." They are deploying advanced tech at scale, proving it can deliver real-world gains in productivity, resilience, and supply chain efficiency.

AI Moves from the Lab to the Factory Floor

We are seeing a major evolution in how industrial tech is used. AI has officially graduated from isolated experiments; it is now deeply embedded into core operations, driving decision-making and continuous optimization across production systems.

This technological leap is forcing a massive rethink of human labor. Instead of replacing workers, manufacturers are redesigning roles and introducing new skill frameworks to help humans and machines work better together. Meanwhile, sustainability has become hardwired into operational strategy. Green initiatives are no longer just about cutting emissions—they are actively being used to slash costs and boost long-term competitiveness.

“The world's leading manufacturers are no longer optimizing individual processes; they are reimagining entire operating systems,” noted Kiva Allgood, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum. She highlighted that embedding intelligence directly into operations allows for lightning-fast response times and continuous learning across entire value chains.

New Initiatives and Real-World Results

The Forum also leveraged the event to launch Impact Stars, a new program designed to spot early-stage industrial innovations that could rewrite the playbook for production models and workforce structures. Applications open on July 15, with projects judged on novelty, scalability, and their operational and green impacts.

To bring these stories to life, the WEF is also working on a documentary titled Inside the Factories of the Future, which will give a behind-the-scenes look at selected Lighthouse sites and their transformation strategies.

The Big Winners: Prominent Case Studies

The performance metrics coming out of these newly recognized sites are staggering:

• Merck (Fenil-sur-Corsier, Switzerland): By implementing continuous bioprocessing and automation, this biotech development center slashed time-to-patient by 50% and boosted lab productivity by 67%.

• NIO (Hefei, China): The EV maker built a real-time, closed-loop manufacturing system that links vehicle data, battery-swapping networks, and digital twins, accelerating their speed-to-market by 44%.

• Royal Canin (Shanghai, China): Deployed AI and advanced analytics across its production chain to manage over 400 SKUs, driving a 20% bump in customer satisfaction.

• Schneider Electric (El Paso, USA): By introducing integrated logistics and industrial AI, they skyrocketed their on-time delivery rate from a shaky 61% to a near-perfect 97%.

Efficiency and Sustainability Breakthroughs

Other major breakthroughs include China Merchants Heavy Industry in Haimen, which multiplied its throughput by 2.6 times, and CIMC Reefer Containers in Jiaozhou, which cut manufacturing lead times by 32%. In India, DCM Shriram’s Gujarat facility achieved an 11 percentage-point improvement in EBITDA while cutting power costs by nearly a third.

On the supply chain resilience front, Unilever’s Haridwar facility cut response times by 72% using AI-driven planning. Similarly, a logistics park in Qingdao used algorithm-based fulfillment tools to drastically improve delivery response and inventory turnover.

The sustainability milestones were equally dramatic:

• Unilever’s Sonepat site (India): Successfully wiped out Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 99%.

• Schneider Electric (Beijing, China): Eliminated Scope 2 emissions entirely while hacking Scope 3 output down by 43%.

Ultimately, the WEF’s Lighthouse Network has become the definitive global benchmark for industrial transformation. Moving forward, insights from these factories will feed directly into the Forum's Lumina platform, helping companies worldwide learn how to scale digital and operational innovations across global value chains.

Source: WEF