expert: China is to lead the world in several fields of robotics

To be at the forefront of the next technological revolution, China is committed to cooperate with more countries and will be able to lead the world in several fields of robotics in the next five to ten years, said Toshio Fukuda, a member of the Science Council of Japan.

"China is a gold mine for innovation and technologies and has large markets for innovative AI robotics," he said. "With the supportive policies, abundant resources provided by both the government and the companies and more forms of cooperation, China will catch up within a few years and then overtake other developed countries to take the top spot in many fields of robotics."

He said during the World Robot Conference in Beijing last month that China is now at a new phase with the ability to produce its original robots, and will be able to lead the world in manufacturing robots and making intelligent service robots in the future.

"Particularly in China, there will be a huge market for services robots that assist people in improving the living conditions, such as the cleaning robots, care robots for the elderly and kids and the data logging robots for healthcare.

"After decades of economic boom and development, Chinese people now are sufficiently affluent to be able to afford a better quality of life. And I believe that in the near future, those service robots would be able to cater to people's specific needs and bring much more value than we thought today."

In 2015, China introduced the Made in China 2025 strategy, a 10-year national plan to transform the country into a world-class high-tech manufacturing power. The plan aims to move manufacturing up on the value chain, developing several key sectors, including robotics.

With the rapid development in robotics in recent years, China is becoming an increasingly important market for advanced AI robots.

The International Federation of Robotics estimates that China's shipments of robots rose 27 percent to around 90,000 units in 2016, almost a third of the global total. And the number is expected to almost double to 160,000 in 2019.

Fukuda said Japan and China should cooperate together in developing and producing the necessary robots for consumers. Chinese robot companies should grasp the opportunity, he said.

"The competition in artificial intelligent robotics will be very fierce. Instead of being locked in a competitive environment in first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, companies should find new niche markets and even target small towns," he said.

Nanjing Central Emporium introduced Sanbot robot as a resident assistant

With beautiful shape and talking leisurely, an intelligent service robot never stopped saying "hello" to the onlookers, enthusiastically answering their questions such as "how to get the cashier?", "Can I rent a baby carriage?", " Can you recommend me the delicious food in shopping mall?" and more about shopping concerns. That robot was Sanbot intelligent robot, which was newly introduced by the Hexi Shop of Nanjing Central Emporium. Thanks to its excellent services, Sanbot intelligent robot became consumers' favorite interactive partners.

According to the Yangzi Evening, the Hexi Shop of Nanjing Central Emporium, one large-scale one-station shopping center located in the Nanjing Olympic Sports Center, hired a batch of intelligent robot staff to play the roles of consultant manager, almighty inquiring manager, smiling accompany assistant and others. In order to welcome the first batch of robot staff, Nanjing Central Emporium held a funny "entry ceremony" in its Hexi shop, attracting many consumers to watch and interact.

Wang Meng, General Manager of Nanjing Central Emporium, confirmed the information to Yangzi Evening sooner after the report. He said the Central Emporium that was founded in January 1936, once was the first large-scale integrated shopping mall in Nanjing, adhering to the concept of "Leading the industry trend". Recently, the Central Emporium took the pilot work at its Hexi shop. The manager introduced Sanbot intelligent robot from domestic leading robot manufacturers - QIHAN Technology. As a resident assistant in Hexi shop, Sanbot provides consultant services for buyers to upgrade consumption experience.

It is known that three Sanbot robots, each named Xiaohe, Xiaoxi and Xiaozhong, would take up their quarters on Saturday at the soonest. Among them, Xiaohe, the inquiring assistant, is responsible to provide information inquiring service, greet customers, see them off, and broadcast real-time shopping information and guide customers to pay attention to the malls' new information. All-around consultant assistant Xiaoxi will help human staff with baby carriage and wheel borrowing, missing persons broadcasting, putting broadcast, first-aid knowledge, free water, parking fee guidance and other services. Xiaoxi will link all the retail scenarios in the entire shopping center, just like "a moving map" and "utility service guide". While, Xiaozhong, the smiling accompany assistant, will mainly perform shows and humorous communication with customers to enhance their sense of participation and interaction, attracting customers and promote the consumption.

Wang Meng revealed that it was only a small initial test and he planned to introduce more Sanbot robots into other chain shops under the group to promote their retail businesses.

He told Yangzi Evening: "The traditional department stores are faced with a necessary transformation towards the fuse of catering, supermarkets, theaters and others with matched shopping center. Taking Hexi Shop as example, we set the consumption upgrading program including catering, fitness and fast consumption brands on first floor, children’s entertainment on the third floor and main central projects distributed on the fourth floor. Introducing intelligent robots is one of the significant measures of transformation. With the robots’ interesting interactions and practical retail business services such as electronic coupons, payment collection, membership card processing, etc. to leave unforgettable impression and promote the customer stickiness.

It is becoming the new trend for offline retail business to promote consumption experience with robot. Just in the past one week, QIHAN Technology delivered one batch of Sanbot Elf robot to the customers in Nanjing, Harbin, Nanchang. The robots are mainly commercial chain intelligent robot, especially used in large shopping malls to promote their chain retail business.

Sanbot commercial chain robot is the most popular in Chinese domestic markets. Besides the customer reception, the marketing promotion ability is one of its highlights for retailers. They are moving advertising platform, it can host marketing activities, as well as ads promotion and giving out electronic coupons at shopping centers, public squares and communities, etc. QIHAN Technology told Yangzi Evening, In future, QIHAN will explore more users' demands to help retailers to create more commercial values and upgrade consumption experience in physical retail stores. We will never stop to introduce and integrate robotic retail solutions to Sanbot robot to improve the service abilities for retail businesses.

AI robotics markets are booming in the global world

As I mentioned before, we are served by robots each day in our daily life. And that's not science fiction as these intelligent service robots are already around you. The result and also it is the fact that, AI robotics markets are booming in the global world.
Intelligent robots playing the role of personal assistants, in-home caregivers, even pet sitters used to be fantasies that played out only in the realm of science fiction -- but not anymore. The artificial intelligent robotics market is taking off and will continue to grow, with worldwide spending on robotics predicted, according to an IDC study, to reach $139 billion by 2019.


Already we're beginning to see multi-purpose robotic devices on the market. An example is the Sanbot programmable humanoid robot, which is an open API advanced robot and can be easily customized according to the scenarios where the users would like it to work, accessible for home and businesses. Like Jibo, Padpot and the other similar kinds, are mainly for home service.


With robots becoming more ubiquitous in many scenarios of our lives, and with so much opportunity and promise, it's no surprise that more entrepreneurs are jumping into the market.


In fact, entrepreneurial innovation is fueling the demand for robotics. Research from the International Federation of Robotics states that startups less than five years old already make up 15 percent of all companies engaged in the intelligent service robotics market. A lot of investment is pouring in, only adding to the number of companies in this space.


The good news for entrepreneurs in the robotics space is the plethora of resources available to help on all aspects of this type of business, including robots in home, programmable robots for education, usher robots and advanced medical robotics, etc. Organizations involved in the industry include Silicon Valley Robotics, a meta accelerator for startups in the robotics space in Northern California; the Robot Lab in Paris, an incubator that provides designers with tools and resources needed for the creation and development of their products; and our organization, IngDan, a one-stop IoT hardware innovation platform for consumer testing and feedback, to accelerate brand recognition and product adoption among Chinese consumers.


As the markets illustrates, China is the fastest-growing robotics market, followed by Japan and the United States. The opportunities are numerous, but it's also important to understand the differences in each market. For example, in a country like the United States, consumers tend to seek out high-value products, with data privacy and security being important issues needing to be addressed.