CHANGSHA, May 9 (Xinhua) -- World's leading integrated tunnel equipment manufacturing base has been put into operation in Changsha, capital of central China's Hunan Province.

With an investment of 5 billion yuan (785 million U.S. dollars), the base covers an area of 67 hectares and produces advanced equipment for tunneling such as tunnel boring machines, drilling jumbos and shield tunneling machines, according to China Railway Construction Heavy Industry Co., Ltd on Tuesday.

The construction of the manufacturing base started in July 2017.

Liu Feixiang, chairman of the company, said that traditional drill-and-blast tunneling method conducted by workers was slow, dangerous and caused pollution, and that technological upgrading was much needed.

"Our company will apply advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence to give each equipment robot features, in the purpose of achieving unmanned operation in the tunnel," Liu said.