Emerging tech reshaping manufacturing

Emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence have been playing a bigger role in upgrading China's manufacturing industry and new industrialization, officials and company executives at the 25th China International Industry Fair said.

This year's CIIF, which runs from Tuesday to Saturday in Shanghai, will debut more than 1,000 new technologies and products either nationally or globally, setting a new record. Covering about 300,000 square meters, another record, the CIIF has now outgrown its peer, the 78-year-old Hannover Messe, in size.

This year's CIIF also has more international exhibitors than in previous editions, attracting 3,000 companies from 28 countries and regions including Germany, Japan and the United States.

Swiss manufacturing giant ABB is unveiling its Integrated Vision 2.0 version at the CIIF. By applying artificial intelligence, this latest vision-guided robotics solutions application can adapt to most cameras in the market and connect to the entire system in 30 minutes, significantly lowering costs, according to the company's marketing promotion executive Liu Hao.

In light of the interdisciplinary breakthroughs and collective leapfrogs being made in technology innovation, China will explore new trajectories like humanoid robots, brain-computer interfaces, metaverse and quantum information to accelerate its new industrialization process, Minister for Industry and Information Technology Li Lecheng said during the opening ceremony on Tuesday.

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng said the city has been attaching greater importance to fundamental research into core technologies and building high-quality incubators, centers for proof of concept and institutions for technology transfers, in a bid to transform more research results into products and, eventually, industries.

Leading Chinese robotics companies including Siasun Robot & Automation, Chaifu Robot and Jaka Robotics will display their latest technologies during the fair.

Chaifu is showcasing the world's first heavy-duty industrial robot with a rated load capacity greater than 5 metric tons at the wrist, enough to lift a car.

According to the company's marketing manager Cao Jiahao, the robot can be used for transporting oversized tools and handling extreme conditions in manufacturing, logistics, construction and mining.

Shanghai SmartState Technology Co Ltd, a first-time CIIF participant, is present at the special zone demonstrating the application of AI in machine tools.

Company executives said the smart agent they are debuting can serve as the brain for machine tools, enabling them to think and evolve on their own. Once given a task, the agent can work out plans, make decisions and optimize processing paths on its own, making its efficiency rate 40 percent higher than other industrial software.

Haizol, a digital platform for industrial components, is showcasing AI tools that can help Chinese companies discover new business opportunities.

In Yongkang, Zhejiang province, where nearly 70 percent of the world's stainless drinkware is produced, Haizol helped a client to redefine itself into a stainless steel stamping factory.

The company has thus extended its business from bottles to high-performance water storage equipment liners used in the aerospace field and insulin injection liquid storage devices with vacuum layers, of which the latter has a gross profit margin of 80 percent.

These new products are proving popular overseas, according to Haizol's partner and Vice-President Liu Haitao.