How will China's robotics industry take the lead in the battle for discourse power under the market size of 600 billion yuan?

Although my country's robotics industry started late, it has maintained a high-speed development trend, thanks to the large number of domestic industrial robots. With the continuous increase in labor costs in recent years, the phenomenon of "machines replacing people" in the industrial field is common. In contrast, the prosperity of the industrial robot market has led to the domestic priority development of the robotics industry. According to relevant statistics, there are 28 provinces in China that focus on the development of the robotics industry, more than 40 robotics industrial parks, and more than 500 robotics companies.

Under the dual favorable conditions of market and policy, the domestic robot market is rapidly heating up. It is estimated that in the next 10 years, the total scale of China's industrial robot market will reach a considerable 600 billion yuan.

Since 2013, the use of industrial robots in my country has increased significantly. In 2016, the total sales volume reached 89,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 26.6%. Among them, the cumulative sales of domestic industrial robots reached 29,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 30.9%. The number of industrial robots installed reached 85,000 units, exceeding 30% of the number of new industrial robots in the world.

At present, there are more than 1.5 million industrial robots in use around the world. By 2018, this number will exceed 2.3 million, of which 1.4 million are in Asia, accounting for more than half. This means that 3 out of every 10 industrial robots in the world are used in China. However, although my country's industrial robot usage has ranked first in the world for five consecutive years, in sharp contrast, in the huge robot consumer market, Chinese local brand robots only account for 4%.

It can be said that my country is currently in the critical period of "China's Intelligent Manufacturing". At present, promoting the integration of emerging technologies and manufacturing technologies, including artificial intelligence and robot applications, has become the main direction of my country's manufacturing transformation and upgrading. Since the "Robotics Industry Development Plan (2016-2020)" proposed specific goals for 2020, my country's new generation of robotics technology has achieved breakthroughs in various fields, but the premise of innovative application still needs to face obstacles such as the lack of core technologies and the training of relevant talents.

The talent gap exceeds millions, and mastering core technologies is the key

According to the Global AI Talent Report, only 38.7% of Chinese AI practitioners have worked in the field for 10 years, while the proportion of those in the United States with more than 10 years of experience has reached the highest in the world at 71.5%. However, although there is a huge gap between my country and the United States in the total number of AI talents, China has a clear advantage overall and has a better development prospect.

The advantage of Chinese AI talents is that most of them are highly educated, with 62.1% of them having a master's degree or above, ahead of the 56.5% in the United States. In terms of personnel distribution, more than 70% of the American AI basic talents are too concentrated. China's AI technology and application talents are more widely distributed, especially in the fields of robotics, image recognition, precision marketing and autonomous driving.

However, in addition to the talent advantage, the disadvantages of the core of my country's industrial development are also obvious. The development of industrial robots has become a pillar-level link in domestic development. However, if my country's related industries want to make a breakthrough in essence, they need to pay more patience and investment in core technical strength. For example, the field of surgical robots, which only represents a small part of the market but can reflect the reality of the entire industry. The United States now has 3,000 surgical robots, and my country has only 60. However, this market can reach tens of billions, provided that the corresponding key technologies are mastered.

However, for a long time, the relevant technologies have been in the hands of a few overseas companies such as Japan's FANUC, Japan's Yaskawa, Germany's KUKA and Switzerland's ABB. This undoubtedly led to overseas companies easily seizing most of my country's robot market share. Secondly, due to the lack and imperfection of core technologies, the domestic robot industry can only allow overseas upstream companies with absolute discourse power to arbitrarily slaughter and earn excess profits from it.

However, the good news is that the fierce competition between foreign and domestic robot suppliers will, to a certain extent, encourage more Chinese related industries to enter the market. In addition to the promotion of policies and other aspects, it is expected that by the end of this year, the number of robots in China will exceed 400,000, and the future growth potential of the Chinese market is huge.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.