Humans 'control' the technology
Automation is taking hold
Salary increases and labour shortages are forcing Chinese companies to embrace automation throughout the manufacturing chain. For many companies, robots are the solution, with China accounting for slightly less than 25 per cent of global shipments for industrial robots last year, according to research firm HIS.
Facing the inevitable, local and national authorities are encouraging the trend by providing support for the manufacture and purchase of robotics in mainland China. Guangdong alone plans to spend more than 943 billion yuan (HK$1.129 trillion) through 2017 to shift production from human workers to roboticised production lines.
Companies in Shenzhen are rapidly creating a local hub for China's robotics industry. It's a boom market, with domestic sales expected to grow 30 per cent in each of the next three years.
The Ministry of Finance is working with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) to support the production of a range of robots that can do everything from arc-welding to surgical assistance and public service.
Robots are most visible in the car, electronics and steel industries and have served to improve quality and to perform tasks either impossible or too dangerous for human workers.
Still, the percentage of manufacturing done by robots in China is quite low, according to a 2015 survey by the International Federation of Robotics. Robots stand at 36 per 10,000 workers in China, compared with 292 in Germany and 478 in South Korea.
It remains an open question whether domestic or international firms will produce the robots that change the game. Zhang Wenqiang, director of the Robot Intelligence Lab at Fudan University, estimates that 90 per cent of sales in the domestic market goes to foreign firms such as ABB, FANUC and Kuka. While Chinese companies often make robot components, local companies are eager to increase their market share for complete solutions. Indeed, government goals call for domestic firms to capture half of all industrial robot sales by 2020.
If that happens, it will be because of support from campaigns such as Made in China 2025. Government agencies and local municipalities are willing "to help with research and development space, patent assistance and marketing", says Goti Deng, co-founder and executive director of UBTech, a robot manufacturing firm in Shenzhen. "Top leaders and local officials want traditional manufacturers to upgrade and the attention to general and start-up companies helps."
Just as the robotics industry is changing manufacturing, so too is the nature of robotics changing. Analysts such as Luo Jun, CEO of the International Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, says that artificial intelligence and robots that can learn could be higher on China's radar.
Engineers who can design and programme robots will fare well in the future. Every factory floor will still have some call for human workers, whether it's staff to maintain robots or to work in concert with them.
Industrial automation expert Wang Tianran says that the challenge engineers and managers face today is discerning which tasks make economic sense to automate and then how to integrate those robots with human staff. He makes a call for "hybrid automation", with human staff continuing to perform mission-critical tasks.
While robots will inevitably replace a significant number of workers, the fear that human intelligence will be replaced by machines is overblown, says Deng of UBTech. "That's not going to happen. They are not sentient. We are still in control of robot technology."