CHANGSHA, China—The blueprint for China’s industrial future lies on a dustless factory floor known as Workshop 18, where workers in dark blue uniforms work alongside robots to build pump trucks that can blast cement up the world’s tallest skyscrapers.

Engineers at the plant run by Sany Group Co. figure out how to make better products by analyzing information fed in real-time from machines operating around the world to a data center nearby. The company tracks 380,000 of its internet-connected concrete mixers, excavators and...