With the increasing demand for low-cost energy storage systems, more and more researchers and engineers have been involved in the fundamental research and engineering exploration of sodium-ion battery, which grew rapidly in the past decade. This article firstly analyzes the situation of global lithium resource, especially the potential risks in China. Then we review the history of NIBs and introduce their global industrialization status in recent years. According to the latest research progress in this field, we summarize seven advantages of NIBs in terms of cost, performance, etc., which endows NIBs with huge development potential. Finally, we focus on introducing our work on the development and mass production of low-cost electrode materials such as copper-based layered oxide cathodes and disordered carbon anodes, as well as the application demonstration and engineering scale-up of NIBs. The successful demonstration of Ah-grade cells and battery packs for NIBs has initially proved their feasibility. By optimizing electrode materials, electrolytes, manufacturing and integration, and battery management, it is expected to further improve the comprehensive performance of NIBs, and realize the practical applications in low-speed electric vehicles, data center backup power supplies, communication base stations, household/industrial energy storage systems, and large-scale energy storage.