A Beijing suburb that is hosting the 2023 World Robot Conference aims to create 50 application scenarios for China’s emerging robotics technology in the next three years starting this year, a local official said yesterday.
Yizhuang, a satellite town in the southeastern Beijing suburbs of Daxing and Tongzhou, is the venue of the ongoing World Robot Conference, scheduled to run through August 22.
At a forum yesterday, Liu Li, deputy director of the management committee of Beijing ETown Economic and Tech Development Zone, which handles business issues concerning Yizhuang, announced a three-year action plan aimed at fostering the robotics sector.
Over the next three years, Yizhuang, as the permanent venue of the conference, will go into overdrive to create what it calls “iconic” use cases for robotics firms to apply their technologies in smart manufacturing, education, healthcare, elderly care and emergency response.
Liu explained that the Beijing suburb, about 16 km away from the downtown, will adopt a “four-in-one” approach to developing the robotic space.
At the heart of its drive is the ambition to become an innovation hub for humanoid robots.
Core breakthroughs
To achieve this goal, Yizhuang will partner with tertiary education institutions and leading enterprises to construct a slew of joint innovation centers.
The goal is to achieve core breakthroughs in humanoid robotics and large language model.
By the end of 2025, the development zone will see 100 new robotic projects being implemented on the basis of an industry-research nexus. R&D spending on robotics is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 50% and more.
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In terms of high-end manufacturing, Yizhuang is already home to a hundred robotic ecosystem businesses, counting big names including Xiaomi (小米), UBTech (优必选), Yaskawa, TopSkyTech (凌天) and SRT (软体机器人) among them.
They span six industries such as humanoid, medtech, collaborative, specialized and logistics robotics, and core parts.
Specialized, new and elite
A third of them are certified “specialized, new and elite enterprises,” a title bestowed upon select tech startups in tribute to their high growth rate and innovation.
“The proportion of their annual revenue in the overall output of Beijing-based robotic firms has reached 50% and is growing by each passing year,” said Li, the official.
Integration is a big part of robotic application. In the next three years, Yizhuang looks to formulate a string of “signature” scenarios, services, business models and business formats in line with the “robot+” action plan released by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and 16 other ministry-level state agencies early this year.
Aside from these efforts, Yizhuang will set up a few test and exhibition centers to showcase the inroads it has been making in robotics and attract talent.
By 2025, Yizhuang will optimize an industrial chain comprising six types of core parts, like servo motor and gear reducer, and six kinds of robotic products.
