How China is fast-tracking high-speed rail with AI-powered builders
- AI-powered machines are taking on some of hardest jobs on the world’s largest high-speed railway network
- Faster, safer and more efficient robotic construction has implications for other infrastructure projects in China and around the world, experts say
The world’s most extensive high-speed rail network is about to get even bigger.
Later this year, several new lines will join the country’s already vast network of electrified rail transport. They include a 277km (172-mile) line between Fuzhou and Xiamen, a 203km route between Guangzhou and Shantou, and a 278km link between Shanghai and Nanjing.
When they go into service, the combined length of the new lines will stretch more than half the total length of Germany’s entire high-speed railway network, each providing trains capable of maximum operating speeds of 350km/h (217mph).
But the latest additions to China’s high-speed railway network differ from most existing lines in the way they were built – by robots, specifically designed for overhead electrified lines. According to engineers involved in the projects, the automated construction methods have been tested and approved for use in the next high-speed rail projects.
The large-scale deployment of overhead electrified line construction robots has been hailed as an industry milestone, signalling that machines can now take over most of the labour-intensive work involved in high-speed railway construction, according to experts.