After Chinese leaders raised the concept of “robots” on several occasions, more local governments and enterprises began to pay attention to the industry. In mid-December alone, Guangzhou and Chengdu held high-profile robot industry conferences, while several local governments also plan to boost the robot industry during the 13th Five-Year Plan period.
Wu Xinzhang, director of the Centre for Advanced Electrical Machinery at the University of Central Florida in the US, is also feeling the change – the number of technical inquiries he has received from Chinese companies has increased several times in recent months.
“Robots are driving a new industrial revolution in China,” Wu told 21st Century Business Herald. “But we should also see that China’s market demand is too low.”
Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include information robot, editing robot, writing robot and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.
The next step in robot development: Integrating e-commerce?
MAO Weiming, vice minister of Industry and Information Technology, said in Guangzhou that the era of ultra-fast growth of 25 percent per year in China’s equipment manufacturing industry has come to an end, and the development model that relied too much on investment and scale expansion will not be sustainable.
MAO said that the industrial robot industry can not only achieve high-quality product manufacturing standards through intelligent production, but also cope with rising labor costs and other problems. It is an important choice to overcome China’s rapid increase in industrial costs, low added value and environmental and resource constraints.
MAO Weiming’s remarks were interpreted as “China’s version of industry 4.0 plan” by industry insiders attending the World Robot Industry Conference.
However, from the perspective of market development, Li Ruifeng, deputy director of the Robotics Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology, believes that although robots as an innovation can be well integrated with the continuous development of new technologies, but in the future, robot development alone is not enough to achieve industry 4.0.
Mr Li’s suggestion is to introduce an e-commerce model. “The development of the robot industry must be integrated with the development model of e-commerce, which is an example of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises in the new industry,” he said. In the era before Industry 4.0, the cost of product connection to users was huge and had to rely on advertising, but in the era of Industry 4.0, the cost of product connection to users was 0, and the product itself was an advertisement, such as Xiaomi mobile phone, wechat and so on.”
Robot, deputy director of the national engineering center of shenyang siasun robot joint-stock company President dao-kui qu also agree with this view, he said, the electricity, don’t talk about technology, but is the enterprise of great effort, to arm themselves with the latest business model, the global integration of talent, the introduction of the international capital, under the big market of China developed, together with its own technology, product research and development quickly seize market, Therefore, enterprises should be the first to develop industries. When enterprises are large, they should integrate according to various elements of the market rather than start enterprises by themselves after they have everything. This is also the biggest problem in China at present, which should be carried out by “R&D + commercialization”.
Qu Daokui said that completely relying on their own to master the core technology is likely to lose a major opportunity for the development of the robot industry, “technology we must do, the key is to make efforts in the way of enterprise development. In just a few years, China’s e-commerce has become the world’s leading player. If e-commerce companies were studying technology every day, they would not have developed to the present height.”
21st century economic report reporter learned that, the next step, the ministry of industry and information ministry of organization to make robot technology roadmap and robot industry much starker choices-and graver consequences-in planning in China, by strengthening the top-level design, guide industry development, perfecting standard system construction at the same time, to organize the formulation of China’s schedule of robot industry standard and industry standard system structure diagram, We will increase financial support for the r&d and industrialization of robot enterprises, build platforms for the docking of production and demand, cultivate demonstration bases for industrial promotion, and strive to make breakthroughs in key technologies and important links to promote the healthy development of the robot industry.
Beware of overinvestment
According to statistics by 21st Century Business Herald, more than 30 robot industrial parks have been announced in Chengdu, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Kunshan, Henan, Wuhu and Shanghai.
However, it is worth noting that the robot market is currently concentrated in the automotive industry, despite the strong efforts of central and local governments to develop the robot industry. Data show that the global automotive industry accounts for about 40 percent of the total industrial robots, while in China, the figure reaches 70 percent.
Luo Jun, secretary general of the International Federation of Robot Industries, also worries about this phenomenon: despite the efforts of countries including China, Germany and Japan to promote the development of the robot industry in the past two years, the global output value of robots was about 30 billion US dollars in 2014, which is less than the output value of a traditional domestic manufacturing enterprise.
Qu Daokui told the 21st Century Business Herald that the current high technology of robots does deviate from the actual demand of the robot market. The cost of robots is high. It costs a lot to transform a traditional labor-intensive factory into a robot factory. The labor rate of a robot is equal to 3.6 people, but the cost is about 5 to 50 times. “Most of the traditional manufacturing industry earns 6 per cent, while banks’ funding costs are 10 per cent. Companies don’t have a strong incentive to transform themselves, and they don’t have that much capital.”
“Governments at all levels are more enthusiastic than enterprises, and now there are more than 30 or 40 robot industrial parks to be built by local governments. The enthusiasm of the actual government may directly contribute to the blindness of the future industry,” qu Daokui said, “We should be on guard against the plight of robots repeating the overheating of the photovoltaic industry in the future.”
Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.
On the other hand, the lack of innovation is criticized by the industry. In 2014, IFR released a report that China’s robot industry lacks technological innovation, including innovative ideas and creative achievements. There are no backbone enterprises that can participate in international competition, the scale is generally small, and the quality and reliability of key components lag behind the world’s advanced level by 5 to 10 years.
Wu Xinzhang told the 21st Century Business Herald: “China’s robot enterprises basically mastered the technology of industrial robot design, but such as sensor and advanced control of core technology dependence on foreign, domestic enterprises can obtain the same quality of robot products is very little profit, robot production enterprise scale is generally small, hard to form scale effect, human, research and development and marketing costs is high, “Domestic robots lack brand recognition, the market is basically occupied by foreign brands, and domestic brands lack production practice testing.”
Qu also said that another big risk for robot development is the risk of high technology and low added value of robots. “Big problems now robot, high technology, but now added value lower into the conventional industries, and in fact the robot is a typical three tenors, technology intensive, talent high intensity, high capital intensity, but such a high technology industries in the whole market is now into the present situation of the output is very low, this leads to the next robot who to vote for, “The question is who will develop, which means that traditional robots have been relegated to the pedestal of high technology.”