The Next Decade for Pressure Sensors: Insights from SENSOR CHINA 2026
2026-09-10
From September 16 to 18, 2026, at the Shanghai International Convention Center for Multinational Procurement, SENSOR CHINA 2026—one of the world’s three premier sensor trade shows—will soon open.
This year’s exhibition is particularly noteworthy—it marks the start of a new decade, with 30,000 square meters of fully occupied space bringing together more than 600 companies spanning the entire sensor industry value chain, and is expected to draw over 28,000 professional visitors.
What is the weight of the three words “New Decade”?
Over the past decade, the dominant trend in the sensor industry has been the relentless pursuit of breakthroughs in individual performance metrics such as sensitivity, accuracy, and reliability.
Today, merely leading in a few isolated metrics is no longer enough to build a competitive moat. How material performance translates into engineering robustness, how new technologies navigate the “valley of death” between validation and mass production, and how supply chains can collaborate efficiently in fragmented ecosystems—these systemic challenges are replacing the race for benchmark scores and emerging as the decisive battlegrounds.
The race track is also getting bigger.
According to data from CCID Consulting, China’s sensor market is projected to reach approximately RMB 470 billion by 2025. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is expected to grow at an annual rate of around 15%, with the market size poised to surpass RMB 1 trillion by 2030. This trillion‑yuan opportunity underpins the confidence for the “next decade.”
This year’s exhibition has already highlighted the key highlights for us.
According to official signals, SENSORCHINA 2026 is focused on four rapidly growing sectors: embodied intelligence, physical AI, commercial aerospace, and next-generation computing centers.
Embodied intelligence
According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, annual production of humanoid robots is expected to exceed 100,000 units by 2026, and force/pressure sensing is emerging as a key component in overcoming the “last millimeter” challenge for precision manipulation.
Physics AI
Intelligent driving has become the first application scenario to achieve large-scale deployment, with the perception system directly defining the system’s safety boundaries.
Commercial spaceflight
According to the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology, the market size is expected to exceed RMB 3.5 trillion, and the stability of aerospace-grade sensors under extreme conditions will determine the success or failure of missions.
Next-Generation Computing Center
As liquid cooling penetration rises and cabinet power densities continue to climb, real-time sensing of physical parameters such as pressure, temperature, humidity, and leakage has evolved from a supporting monitoring function to a core input for energy‑efficiency optimization—prompting the exhibition to dedicate a “New‑Generation Computing Center Intelligent Sensing Applications Forum” to this topic.
Four distinct tracks all point to the same fundamental question: how can machines accurately perceive the physical world? For pressure sensors, each of these four domains is virtually a “main battlefield.”
The Next Decade of Pressure Sensors: Five Certainties
Drawing on market data and trade show signals, we present five key insights.
Certainty No. 1: Application-driven growth—scaling from the “core business” to a “multiplied presence in new scenarios.”
The core market for pressure sensors comprises industrial control, automotive electronics, medical devices, and consumer electronics; incremental growth is driven by emerging applications. The core market for pressure sensors comprises industrial control, automotive electronics, medical devices, and consumer electronics; incremental growth is driven by emerging applications.
According to the “China Sensor Market Research Report” compiled by CCID Consulting, China’s pressure sensor market size grew from RMB 54.25 billion in 2021 to RMB 81.52 billion in 2025, and is expected to surpass RMB 100 billion by 2027. From a global perspective, data from MarketsandMarkets indicate that the worldwide pressure sensor market is projected to expand from USD 13.07 billion in 2025 to USD 17.70 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 6.2%.
Certainty No. 2: Technological Leapfrogging—MEMS and Nanoscale Thin Films Advancing in Parallel
In terms of technological trends, pressure sensors are advancing toward integration, miniaturization, intelligence, and networking. MEMS piezoresistive sensors, leveraging mature manufacturing processes and cost advantages, remain the mainstream choice for high cost‑performance applications. Meanwhile, for high‑end scenarios involving extreme conditions such as high temperature, high pressure, severe vibration, and radiation, emerging approaches based on novel sensing materials like nanofilms are pushing the boundaries—making this an indispensable battleground for domestic manufacturers seeking to move upmarket.
Certainty No. 3: Domestic substitution has entered deep waters.
On the policy front, the “Action Plan for the Development of the Intelligent Testing Equipment Industry (2023–2025)” places pressure sensors at the top of its list of key sensing components to be developed. On the industry side, the domestic self-sufficiency rate for core sensor chips has risen from less than 5% in 2023 to around 15%. Over the next decade, substitution will shift from “being able to do it” to “doing it well”—with high precision, high reliability, and long service life emerging as the new benchmarks for market entry.
Certainty Four: Intelligence—Sensors Are Becoming “Smart Terminals”
Digital outputs, self‑diagnostics, and wireless connectivity are reshaping product architectures. Pressure sensors are no longer merely “components that measure pressure”; they have evolved into intelligent nodes capable of self‑checking, communicating, and directly feeding into closed‑loop control—features that are especially critical in applications such as liquid‑cooled data centers and unmanned systems.
Certainty Five: Ecological Collaboration—Shifting from Point‑by‑Point Competition to Supply‑Chain Competition
“Breaking the Impasse, Rebuilding: Global Supply-Chain Security and Collaboration for Sensors, Alongside Local Ecosystem Development” — this was the keynote theme of SENSOR CHINA over the past decade, and it will also define the focus of the next. No matter how powerful a single product may be, it cannot prevail without seamless collaboration across the entire supply chain; whoever first integrates into the ecosystem and sets the standards will hold the power of discourse.
As an exhibitor, how does Songnuo Meng Technology view the past decade?
The technological roadmap chosen by Songnuo Meng Technology happens to address the aforementioned certainties:
Route
We have deeply cultivated high-performance nanofilm sensors, mastering three core technologies: specialized metallic elastomer materials, novel sensitive functional materials, and vacuum atomic thin-film deposition. By achieving “atomic‑level integration” between the sensing element and the elastomer, we fundamentally address the instability and unreliability caused by zero‑point drift in conventional sensors.
Confidence
More than 100 patents have been granted domestically and internationally, over 200 high-performance sensors have been successfully developed, and more than ten authoritative certifications—including CPA, CQC, CE, and ATEX explosion-proof—have been obtained.
Battlefield
The company’s products serve a wide range of national strategic sectors, including defense equipment, naval vessels, nuclear energy and nuclear power, semiconductors, and new energy. Its mission has always been to “break foreign monopolies and achieve domestic production of high-end sensors.”
We believe that, over the next decade, long-term stability in high‑temperature, high‑pressure environments, reliable sensing under complex operating conditions, and intelligent data delivery will define the true benchmark for high‑end pressure sensors—and this is precisely where the “nanofilm” approach shines.
Conclusion
“A new decade, a fresh start.” As more than 600 companies gather in Shanghai, each bringing its own vision, and as liquid cooling, humanoid robots, and commercial spaceflight propel “perceiving the physical world” into a trillion‑dollar arena, the next decade for pressure sensors will belong to those who truly understand applications, master foundational technologies, and dare to shape the rules.
From September 16 to 18, at the Shanghai International Convention Center for Multinational Procurement, SunoMeng Technology cordially invites you to visit Booth [2C055] and witness a new milestone in domestically developed sensing technology. See you there!
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