Shanghai's robot blueprint eyes 100b-yuan scale by 2025

Shanghai will speed up robot applications and innovations in automotive, medical and other industries, which will boost the scale of the robot-related industry to over 100 billion yuan (US$14.7 billion) by 2025, an industry regulator said on Tuesday.

This will improve the city's digitalization and automation level to become a global innovation capital and fits well with Shanghai's blueprint to develop strategic industries like artificial intelligence and next-generation information technology.

By 2025, Shanghai will establish 10 industry-leading robot brands, 100 benchmark demonstration application scenarios like smart factories, expand the adoption of service robots and open a robot demo center as the first of its kind nationwide, according to the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization.

Robotics is "the frontier industry" of advanced equipment and a new generation of IT integration, said Tang Wenkan, vice director of the commission.

In 2022, the annual production of industrial robots in Shanghai was expected to reach more than 75,000 units, ranking first nationwide and growing 6 percent despite the COVID-19 pandemic. For service robots, it was a year of "spurt" in development, realizing many applications in the medical, construction, agriculture, commercial, household and emergency sectors, the commission pointed out.

On Tuesday, 41 robot firms released and showcased 52 applications in Shanghai, covering industrial intelligence, medical and health care, building services, agricultural, public services, household services and special emergencies. More applications will be released this year, the commission said.

Additional robot industrial zones will be set up in Shanghai, with the Pudong New Area as well as Baoshan, Jiading and Songjiang districts being candidate sites. A 2,000-square-meter robot demo center, open for the public, will break ground this year. It will be the first of its kind nationwide.