The 14th China CNC Machine Tool Fair (CCMT 2026) ran from 21 to 25 April at the Shanghai New International Expo Centre. Asia's leading machine tool event covered 202,000 square metres, drew more than 2,000 companies from 27 countries, and lifted trade attendance more than 23% year on year. AEH exhibited at stand A212 in Hall W1 under a single proposition: software defines measurement.
Where precision meets intelligence:
embodied intelligence moves from concept to delivery
Where most of the industry is still discussing embodied intelligence in principle, AEH showed a CMM using it that can actually be delivered. Built on the fully enclosed Daisy 10128 bridge platform and combining 2D and 3D visual perception with an AI decision engine, the system measures a part wherever it happens to be placed. With no fixture positioning and no manual programming, it identifies the part, establishes the coordinate system, plans the measurement path and carries it out on its own.
Watching a machine work this out for itself made the stand one of the busiest in Hall W1. Visitors followed the full cycle up close and saw the step from passive inspection to active sensing. Embodied intelligence in precision measurement has moved out of the concept stage and into a product that ships.
Four barriers:
setting a new standard for Chinese measurement software
Competition in precision measurement is fundamentally competition in software. Drawing on nearly thirty years of development, AEH has built a combination of advantages that would be difficult to replicate quickly.
Technical depth: four generations of software, from Automet and AC·DMIS through NET·DMIS to today's embodied intelligence platform, proven on production lines at tens of thousands of companies. NET·DMIS holds German PTB certification — independent verification that our measurement software meets the international benchmark.
Ecosystem: NET·DMIS converts freely to and from PC-DMIS and CALYPSO, and supports a wide range of operating environments. You can adopt AEH software without discarding the programs and equipment you already own. Not locking customers in is the point.
Platform: the EMRP quality management platform connects through to MES and ERP for real-time aggregation of quality data, early warning and closed-loop management, helping quality departments move from cost centre to source of value, and taking measurement from a single point to an enterprise-level quality hub.
Standards: holding German PTB certification, defence sector approvals and aerospace customer qualifications, with more than 10,000 customers served. What AEH is doing is not following standards but defining them.
Software built to work with everything you already run
AEH demonstrated its software on live machines, covering everything from basic measurement to specialist modules, with engineers running automatic programming, intelligent measurement and data output on complex parts in real time. Display panels set out results from aerospace blade inspection, 100% inspection of EV components and precision semiconductor measurement.
Across five days, stand A212 saw continuous traffic, with engineers from aerospace, automotive and semiconductor manufacturing stopping to talk and technical sessions filled to capacity. The stand set out two threads: fourth-generation measurement with embodied intelligence, and software built for compatibility.
Four barriers explain why AEH competes where it does. One discipline explains how it got there: 28 years focused on precision measurement and nothing else. Embodied intelligence delivered first, software that works alongside what you already run, and a platform that turns quality data into decisions. Several agreements were signed during the exhibition — the clearest sign that software-defined measurement has moved from an idea to something customers will buy.