Service robots boosting digital transformation

Smart service robots in industry parks, digital factories, restaurants and nurseries are helping boost Shanghai's digital transformation and solving social problems such as an aging society and labor shortages, industry officials told an AI forum on Tuesday. 

Shanghai-based firms Dobe and Gongboshi signed with Beijing-based OrionStar to adopt OrionStar service robots in industrial parks and industrial enterprises, covering remote management, reception guidance and intelligent monitoring, the companies said. 

"Service robots will become a tool for many companies and families in China, like electric cars and home appliances today," Fu Sheng, chairman of OrionStar, told an AI forum in Jiading District.

Gongboshi, or Dr Industry, a startup in Jiading, will integrate software and system with OrionStar robots to serve clients in education, health care and digital factories. Robot applications have become mature in "simple and duplicated work" such as monitoring and care in nursery institutions, said Shen Xiaopeng, CEO of Gongboshi.

In the long term, service robots will help people solve social problems like labor shortage, Fu added.

Culture and industrial park operator Dobe aims to use robots to raise management efficiency and cut costs by "several dozen million yuan" annually, said Jia Bo, the company's chairman.

Dobe started trading on the Shenzhen Growth Enterprise Market in February.

With improved and standard technology and lower costs, service robots will finally come to normal families, at a cost "like a smartphone price," Fu added.