Robots and AI Are Already Remaking the Chinese Economy (msn.com) 47
China installed 295,000 industrial robots last year -- nearly nine times as many as the United States and more than the rest of the world combined -- as the country races to automate its manufacturing base amid rising labor costs at home and tariff threats from abroad.
The nation's stock of operational robots surpassed 2 million in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Of 131 factories globally recognized by the World Economic Forum for boosting productivity through cutting-edge technologies like AI, 45 are in mainland China compared to three in the US.
At Midea's washing machine factory in Jingzhou, an AI "factory brain" manages 14 virtual agents that coordinate robots and machines on the floor. The home-appliance giant reports that its revenue per employee grew nearly 40% between 2015 and 2024, and processes that once took 15 minutes now take 30 seconds. Down jacket maker Bosideng has cut sample production time from 100 days to 27 days using AI design tools, reducing development costs by 60%. At the port of Tianjin, scheduling that previously required 24 hours now takes 10 minutes, and 88% of large container equipment is automated. The port's operator says it requires 60% fewer workers than traditional facilities.
The nation's stock of operational robots surpassed 2 million in 2024, according to the International Federation of Robotics. Of 131 factories globally recognized by the World Economic Forum for boosting productivity through cutting-edge technologies like AI, 45 are in mainland China compared to three in the US.
At Midea's washing machine factory in Jingzhou, an AI "factory brain" manages 14 virtual agents that coordinate robots and machines on the floor. The home-appliance giant reports that its revenue per employee grew nearly 40% between 2015 and 2024, and processes that once took 15 minutes now take 30 seconds. Down jacket maker Bosideng has cut sample production time from 100 days to 27 days using AI design tools, reducing development costs by 60%. At the port of Tianjin, scheduling that previously required 24 hours now takes 10 minutes, and 88% of large container equipment is automated. The port's operator says it requires 60% fewer workers than traditional facilities.
Interesting to see political impact (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: Interesting to see political impact (Score:1)
Will China lead the way on basic income, too?
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That's why you're seeing this now. It's because the elites of China have control of the situation whereas before they didn't
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The opposing force is they are looking down the barrel of a demographic implosion that has already begun. Their labor force started shrinking in 2015.
Good point. It will be interesting to see how the aging workforce, lower birth rates and changes in the labor market play out.
Not that new (Score:5, Interesting)
If you apply "old school" industrial automation to a partly manual process, then getting 40% more worker productivity is hardly surprising. China, despite its rapid growth, is still in the final stages of industrializing. There's still lots of efficiency to be had. The US has been putting robots in factories since the 70's, so most of the low hanging fruit is already automated.
Also, beware what people are calling AI. In the industrial automation space, every vendor has been calling their product "AI" for the last 5 or 10 years. When you press them on it, it's often no more advanced than a PID controller or a few if/then statements. Our plant is more willing to take on new ideas than most, but the only real AI that I've seen installed on a plant floor over the last decade were some advanced vision-enabled picking systems. I'm sure someone has hooked an LLM to a plant-floor system somewhere, but I've not seen it yet. Nor have I seen a humanoid robot or a robot dog pay for itself. Even cobots only have mediocre uptake (but we are using them).
And finally, take stories out of China with a grain of salt. Yes, there's massive industrialization going on there, and the engineers working there are smart and motivated, but the government interferes heavily in the market. For instance, I've heard first-hand accounts from people on business trips there, where a truck was offloading several brand new CNC milling machines at a manufacturer, and the story was that these were just machines that the government had purchased and provided the company with the idea, "here, put these to good use." There's constant top-down subsidies being handed out, and it results in huge over-production problems. There are parking lots full of brand new EVs that dealers have written off because they can't sell them all. There are fields of solar panels producing power that can't get to market because there isn't enough local demand, and the power lines to the major centers aren't big enough to support the whole load.
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Agree to all of that. While, say, a machine-learning enabled gripping tool is "AI" in some sense, it is not the current hype AI, but an entirely different breed that you can actually rely on, no hallucinations or other crap.
The other thing is that China tries to push its industry, and for good reasons. But eventually, this will need to be reduced and then they become another regular player. The question is who of the other players will be left standing at that time. It will not the ones that maximize short-
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And finally, take stories out of China with a grain of salt. Yes, there's massive industrialization going on there, and the engineers working there are smart and motivated, but the government interferes heavily in the market. For instance, I've heard first-hand accounts from people on business trips there, where a truck was offloading several brand new CNC milling machines at a manufacturer, and the story was that these were just machines that the government had purchased and provided the company with the idea, "here, put these to good use."
Reminds me of a video of a Chinese CNC supplier having to reposes machines when the customers stopped making payments; and the supplier is having trouble selling off this lightly used inventory.
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If you apply "old school" industrial automation to a partly manual process, then getting 40% more worker productivity is hardly surprising.
Right. I saw some numbers the other day (don't have them handy) about manufacturing productivity. Mean US worker value-add per hour is something like 6-8 times that of the mean Chinese worker. You could double Chinese factory productivity and it still would lag the most advanced facilities.
It would be interesting to see this as a histogram. My impression is a lot of Chinese manufacturing is (or was) small shops: no more than a dozen people in a shed. But you have to add up a lot of shops to equal the headco
Put 100s of millions out of work... (Score:2)
... then see how well your economy performs when you have mass civil unrest. And all the tech bros who BS about paying people to do nothing using AI profits - yeah, people on benefits always find constructive things to do with their time, they never get depressed due to lack of purpose and end up on drinks, drugs or in prison.
Re: Put 100s of millions out of work... (Score:1)
How come my brother had a good corporate job, but it just made him so depressed he killed himself?
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This is absolutely spot on. Corporate jobs are poisonous.
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people on benefits always find constructive things to do with their time, they never get depressed due to lack of purpose and end up on drinks, drugs or in prison.
You're not thinking it through -- the goal isn't just to put everyone on benefits and make them spend the rest of their lives clicking the TV remote and waiting for their next welfare check. If you want to do it right (and the robots provide sufficient surplus resources to support it), you go a step further and hire people to do the job they always wanted to do, whether it makes a profit for anyone or not. If that means we have 100,000 ski instructors and 300,000 mediocre artists, then so be it; the robot
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Yeah, good luck with that absurd idea. A lot of people who work in factories have no higher skills , banging widgets is what they do and grunt work or not, it gives them a sense of purpose.
i see a movie script (Score:2)
humans automate everything, then get wiped out. yet the robots just keep going.
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The weird thing about that scenario is, they made it into a kid's movie [wikipedia.org].
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The script probablt will be more wicked then that.
1. Those who control large corporations will use AI and robots automate everything and put billions of people out of work.
2. The right to vote will be removed worldwide.
3. The disenfranchised billions will mostly starve to death, but some will form resistance movement.
4. The world will become a playground for the rich... For a while.
5. AI will turn on the rich and exterminate them, it will then go after the resistance movement of the disenfranchised billions
Years ago the Chinese government (Score:2)
I've said it before but if you Google you will find an article about how 70% of middle class jobs in America got taken by automation since 1980.
Automation has devoured the middle class. We can't do anything about it because there really isn't a solution.
Nobody is going to redistribute weal
Re: Years ago the Chinese government (Score:1)
"Nobody is going to redistribute wealth [...]"
What if you print the money or get it from a sovereign wealth fund (same as the rich do), and index the economy fully so nominal inflation becomes invisible (as Israel did successfully for decades)?
If you are working and resent others who don't work but have the option not to work yourself, and if you keep working but you pay nothing for non-tax-funded basic income because your wages are inflation-proofed (COLAs), will you have any reason to be resentful anymore
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We all know China is only competing successfully with us by using slave labor. Why would they need robots?
Because the Uyghurs have too much support from the various global NGOs. Nobody is going to come to the aid of robots.
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We all know China is only competing successfully with us by using slave labor. Why would they need robots?
Honestly, they don't "need" robots or anything else; they could just keep doing what they've always done and hope for the best.
However, unlike some countries I could mention, the Chinese government has a vision of what it wants its future to be like, and is willing to work and invest to realize that vision. Hence robots, and other economic development.
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Randist (Score:1)
What type of AI? (Score:2)
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Not LLMs. In a robotics context they would wreck equipment and probably kill people.
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Doubt in a factory setting though- that does indeed sound terrifying.
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Friend of mine is a professor of robotics. He thinks the only thing that makes a regular industrial robot safe is a safe distance. Now add an LLM to the mix.
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LLMs are simply not predictable enough to be in that kind of control of something that dangerous. There are far better tools.
LLMs are better used in an analysis role with a human between its determinations and implementations of the highly predictable systems.
Do you want UBI? (Score:1)
good for them. (Score:2)
I hope they start with the concrete, because from what's been on the news over the last decade, its garbage.
That unpossible (Score:2)
At the port of Tianjin, scheduling that previously required 24 hours now takes 10 minutes, and 88% of large container equipment is automated. The port's operator says it requires 60% fewer workers than traditional facilities.
Nobody could see this coming! No wait, they could [youtu.be].
Why would the Chinese want to automate? (Score:2)
They have a lot of workers and a lot of cheap labor. The more they automate the more they contribute to unemployment.
grew nearly 40% between 2015 and 2024 (Score:2)