Abstract: Intelligent manufacturing is the main direction of boosting China’s strength in manufacturing. Enhancing the intelligent manufacturing level of textile SME industry clusters will further enhance the overall competitiveness of China’s textile industry and provide a realistic experience for the overall highquality development of the manufacturing industry. Based on questionnaires and interviews, the study investigates the level of intelligent manufacturing of China’s textile SMEs and conducts quantitative analysis on the realistic needs of those enterprises in the process of promoting intelligent manufacturing, such as the need for reasonable resource allocation in response to the development status, and the desire to obtain more support in terms of finance, talents and public platforms through cluster development. On this basis, the paper further proposes several pieces of advice, including improving cascading financing systems for textile SMEs, strengthening the supply of professional talents, paying attention to agile governance in the context of intelligent manufacturing, and developing different paths for industrial clusters based on their different characteristics and different development stages.

Key words: intelligent manufacturing; industrial clusters; SMEs; development paths