Xi'an Jiaotong University has launched Intelligent Equipment, an English-language journal for frontier research and industrial development in intelligent equipment, covering the full "design–manufacturing–operation and maintenance" chain that international journals in the field have long treated as separate silos.

Unveiled at the Intelligent Equipment and Embodied Intelligence Frontiers Forum, held Oct. 23–25 in Xi'an, the journal marked its formal launch with an editorial board appointment ceremony and the premiere of a film setting out its background, positioning and seven featured publishing areas. The forum's industry exhibition brought together Unitree Robotics, AgiBot, Youibot and X Square Robot, which demonstrated humanoid, quadruped and industrial manipulation robots.

Its editorial leadership is drawn from the existing international review network rather than newly assembled. Editor-in-Chief Lu Bingheng, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, chairs the China Additive Manufacturing Standards Committee and directs the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Center. Executive Editor-in-Chief Lei Yaguo, executive vice dean of the School of Mechanical Engineering, is an ASME and IET Fellow, a Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, and an associate editor of IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics and Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing.

The 48-member international editorial board includes more than 60 percent academicians, drawn from Zhejiang University, Beihang University, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Shandong University and Ningxia University, together with scholars from the National University of Singapore and Brunel University London.

The journal is one of six new titles Xi'an Jiaotong University took into the second phase of China's Excellence Action Plan for Science and Technology Journals, a state support scheme run by seven agencies including the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Education. Of the 70 journals selected in the 2025 phase, 65 are English-language — part of a national effort to build domestic publishing outlets in fields where the international journal landscape remains fragmented. XJTU's six selections, five of them in English, rank second nationally among universities.

Aligned with the national strategy for intelligent manufacturing and high-end equipment set out in Made in China 2025, the journal aims to reflect the overall level and the best results of work across intelligent design, manufacturing systems, equipment operation and maintenance, sensing and information perception, intelligent control, low-carbon manufacturing, and frontier interdisciplinary research, and to serve as a high-level international academic exchange platform.

The journal is sponsored by Xi'an Jiaotong University and co-hosted by its School of Mechanical Engineering, the State Key Laboratory of Precision Micro and Nano Manufacturing Technology and its Journal Center, with support from Higher Education Press.

Submissions are invited at IE@xjtu.edu.cn, or through the journal website at https://iejournal.xjtu.edu.cn