Robots almost like human

In the international arena, some Chinese companies have done very well through innovation.

Registered in 2000, Siasun Robot and Automation has grown to be the top domestic robot enterprise. Its market value is estimated to reach 35 billion yuan, the largest of its kind in China and the third-largest in the world. Two-thirds of its products are used by foreign-owned companies. The products are exported to 15 countries around the world.

Its new robot for automated guided vehicles has been applied in the assemblies of leading auto companies like Ford. They have also been exported to Europe in large quantities.

For Qu Daokui, vice board chairman and chief executive officer of Siasun, the most important drive for the fast growth of the company is innovation.

"Robots are a rapidly developing high-tech product. Its technological lifecycle is very short. The international competition of robots relies greatly on innovation," Qu said.

Every year, Siasun invests more than 12 percent of its revenue into research and development.

About 80 percent of employees in Siasun are working in research and development. In its 20,000 square-meter factory, one can seldom see workers. Robotic arms are busy installing robot parts and AGV robots complete the transportation.

In April, Siasun was chosen by the government to join the list of the 10 most famous Chinese brands, alongside Huawei, Haier and China South Locomotive.

Now a research and development team in Siasun, led by Senior Engineer Zou Fengshan, is working hard to develop compound robots that will combine robotic arms, feet and eyes into one robot and coordinate them to work.

"This is the cutting-edge robot that all robot giants are trying to build," Zou says.

"We are confident that we will be able to conquer all the difficulties this year," Qu says.

Industrial robots are key to China's manufacturing and the market is growing quickly. However, in 2017, the market value of service robots in China will surpass that of industrial robots, says Zhu Shiqiang.

Li Mingming and Gong Meng's SpaceH are among the companies trying to build robots that can provide services.

Zhou Jian, 39, CEO of Ubtech, became interested in humanoid robots in 2008. Since then, he has poured all of his 50-million-yuan savings into the research and development of humanoid robots.

In August 2013, the first robot product Alpha entered the market at a price of 6,600 yuan, which is much cheaper than Nao (150,000 yuan) developed by Aldebaran Robotics.

But Alpha is very popular. Orders in the first part of 2015 have reached 100 million yuan, which is what Zhou had expected to sell during the course of the entire year.

More than 30,000 Alpha robots have now sold. Zhou estimates that revenue for 2015 will surpass 200 million yuan, and in 2016 it is expected to surpass 1 billion yuan, with 50 to 60 percent of the orders coming from overseas.

When Zhou first tried to find a way to build a humanoid robot for middle-class consumption, he found two key factors that affected the popularity of humanoid robots such as Nao.

"There are two bottlenecks for commercial intelligent humanoid robots. One is the high cost of component parts, the other is the difficulty in programming," he said.