Tangshan, a coastal city in northern China’s Hebei Province, is building itself into a robotic hub.
During a local economic and trade fair held in Langfang, Hebei, from June 16 to 21, agreements were signed for eight robot-related projects totaling an investment of 1.1 billion yuan (US$153 million).
At the fair, Tangshan Hi-Tech Industrial Development and Development Zone inked the deals with eight companies including UBTech (优必选), Huibo Robotics (汇博机器人) and Chaoneng Robot (超能机器人).
They will join hands in areas such as test system of industrial robot, machine vision, humanoid service robot, AI, software development.
The tie-up aims to promote the adoption of Tangshan-made robots in education, logistics, healthcare and wellness, biotech and other industries.
Tangshan is one of the nation’s robotic powerhouses, with the city ranking first in the domestic market share of its specialized, inspection and welding robots.
The city, which is in the midst of building an industrial robot ecosystem, can benefit from and feed back into Hebei’s efforts to diversify from coal and steel as its major growth drivers, Chinese media reported.
Hebei is China’s largest steel producer and used to rely on coal, steel, automobile, machinery and pharmaceuticals to fuel its development.
In recent years, as it embarks on a transition to emerging industries, the province looks to leverage Tangshan’s role as a pioneer in automation and robotics.
The city’s high-tech development zone has incubated 75 robot-related companies including Kaiyuan Group, CITIC HIC Kaicheng Intelligence, and Baichuan Intelligence, spanning design, manufacturing, sale and service of robots.
To date, Tangshan’s robotic firms boasts 126 patents and has taken part in setting 15 national and industrial standards.
