Towards the end of last year, the nominally communist Chinese government announced that it wants China to become the world’s largest producer of industrial robots.
In comments made in the past few months, China’s President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang have clearly stated their intention to embrace robots and the new industrial revolution brought about by internet connectivity and artificial intelligence.
In a speech to the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Jinping called for a “robot revolution”, saying: “Our country will be the biggest market for robots, but can our technology and manufacturing capacity cope with the competition? Not only do we need to upgrade our robots, we also need to capture markets in many places.”
And speaking at the China Association for Science and Technology conference in Beijing, Keqiang said the conference will “spur the the growth of the emerging robot industry and create the world’s largest robot market”. [Read more…] about Chinese whispers: The most populous nation on Earth wants to replace millions of human workers with industrial robots it plans to manufacture