Chinese autonomous mining equipment maker CiDi expects its overseas deployments to grow this year, promising mine operators reduced labor costs and increased profits while the industry continues to claim worker safety as a benefit. This expansion comes just months after a gas explosion killed 82 workers at a Shanxi coal mine in May this year. The Hong Kong-listed company saw its revenue more than double last year to 884.8 million yuan, or $130.6 million.
CiDi Chief Executive Albert Hu stated the company and its rivals, including Fujian-based EACON, are racing to provide self-driving trucks and other mining equipment. Their stated goals are cutting labor and fuel costs while improving safety.
The drive to cut labor costs directly translates to job displacement and wage suppression for the working class. A single operator can monitor around 100 trucks remotely, a ratio Hu believes can scale even further, demonstrating the potential for massive reductions in the mining workforce.
Profits Over People
CiDi's "asset-light" business model, where it sells hardware and software directly to mine operators and leaves manufacturing to partners, allows it to maximize surplus extraction. The company went public about one year ago, in late 2025.
Its deployments and revenue in China grew 374% last year, significantly outpacing the roughly 73% growth for China's autonomous mining equipment industry as a whole. Overseas markets are projected to contribute a double-digit percentage of revenue next year, up from a low single-digit share.
In Jurong, Jiangsu province, 12 fully electric unmanned trucks operated today at an open-pit quarry owned by cement conglomerate TCC Group Holdings. These machines autonomously hauled limestone to crushing facilities, showcasing the complete removal of human drivers from the operation.
The State's Complicity
The promise of "improved safety" through automation rings hollow against the backdrop of the May 2026 gas explosion in a Shanxi coal mine, which killed 82 workers. Scrutiny has only intensified in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia provinces after this mass casualty event, not as a proactive measure to protect labor.
China currently leads the world in the use of autonomous mining trucks, with approximately 10% of its trucks now driverless. CiDi's global fleet has expanded to over 1,700 vehicles, primarily in China, operating across 30 quarries and coal mines.
CiDi is also developing robots for blasting and drilling, with explosive-handling units expected later this year and drilling robots early next year. These machines are designed for "very dangerous, very precise" work, further removing human labor from the most hazardous tasks, yet the fundamental dangers of the industry persist under capitalist production.
Chief Executive Hu noted that some of their trucks now have robotic arms, blurring the lines between a truck and a robot. He emphasized that coordinating large fleets, sometimes up to 500 autonomous trucks at once in coal mines, represents a "very big technological threshold" for competitors.
To expand its global reach and secure new markets for capital accumulation, CiDi has equipped partially automated autonomous excavators in Australia and plans a larger rollout there this year. It is also pursuing contracts in the Middle East, South America, and Europe, and has a distribution partnership with British mining equipment maker MMD Group.