China's manufacturing industry revolution is at the full speed as more and more industries introduce robots to upgrade the manufacturing speed and quality and customer experience.
"Industrial robots will witness a 'golden period of development' in the next 20 to 30 years in China with the transformation and upgrading of Chinese manufacturing," Luo Jun, CEO of the International Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, an industry think tank, told the Global Times, a hot daily Chinese newspaper.
Meanwhile, intelligent service robots that can be used as domestic assistants and in hospitals, hotels and nursing homes are becoming increasingly known to the public. Government initiatives to improve the quality of China's industries, such as "Made in China 2025," have sought to support the country's robot industry.
Sun Ying, deputy president of the Zhejiang Robot Association and head of a robotics firm in Hangzhou, told the Global Times that her company's sales revenue reached 200 million yuan ($29 million) last year, up from just 600,000 yuan in 2012 when the company was established. Sun's company mainly provides industrial robots for the detection of flaws and measurements to the logistics, automobile and optical communication sectors.
"Most of our robots were sold to factories in southern China in the past, but starting this year, our market has expanded to European countries including Russia, the Czech Republic and Finland following China's Belt and Road initiative," Sun said. Meanwhile, the company is also eyeing the service robot industry, establishing a new branch last year to develop advanced medical robotics for nursing homes, according to Sun.
The National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee, a national advisory organ, said it predicts that more than 150,000 industrial robots will be sold in China by 2020, with more than 800,000 in service by then. The committee added that the sector will be worth tens of billions of yuan and will be globally competitive, thepaper.cn reported.
China has struggled to keep pace with Western countries in developing and researching programmable autonomous robots, and the techniques behind core components of industrial robots, such as electrical machinery and controllers, are monopolized by Japan and Germany, according to Luo.
To encourage Chinese scientists to develop robotic technology, China has allocated 600 million yuan for 42 robotics programs this year, the Ministry of Science and Technology said in August. Luo suggested the government step up efforts to develop next generation advanced AI robots which use artificial intelligence in order to narrow the gap with Western developed countries.
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