The 2023 China Robot Industry Development Conference was held from December 4 to 6 in Wuhu, Anhui province. More than 1,000 representatives from the government, industry associations, universities, research institutes and enterprises exchanged ideas around the theme of "Robots improve thousands of lines and industries", and talked about how robots enable thousands of lines and industries to serve the high-quality development of the economy.
Robots are known as the "pearl at the top of the crown of manufacturing", and their research and development, manufacturing and application are an important sign to measure a country's scientific and technological innovation and high-end manufacturing level. In recent years, China has introduced a series of policy measures to encourage the development of the robot industry. The "14th Five-Year Plan" robot industry Development Plan specifies five major tasks, and proposes that by 2025, China will become a global source of robot technology innovation, a high-end manufacturing agglomeration and a new highland for integrated application. In January 2023, 17 departments including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly issued the "Robot +" Application Action Implementation Plan to accelerate the expansion of robot applications.
Song Xiaogang, secretary-general of the China Machinery Industry Federation and executive director of the Robot Branch, said in his speech at the conference that the conference summarized the development and application of the robot industry in 2022, sorted out the problems and difficulties in the industry, and aimed to build a docking platform between the industrial chain and the industrial chain and industry users. To play an active role in the development of China's robot industry "from there to excellent".
In 2022, China's industrial robot sales reached 290,000 units, accounting for about 52% of global sales, becoming the world's largest consumer market for ten consecutive years. From the production point of view, in 2022, China's industrial robots produced 443,000 units, an increase of 22% from 2021. From the perspective of structure, the proportion of multi-joint robots in the overall population is constantly increasing; From the perspective of industry applications, electronic equipment and equipment manufacturing is the primary application industry, and the recovery of the automotive industry has accelerated.
As an important national robot industry development cluster area, the robot industry in Wuhu City has moved from "nothing to nothing" to "from good to good" in the past ten years, forming the whole industrial chain of industrial robots, service robots, core parts, system integration, artificial intelligence and special equipment. At present, Wuhu City has gathered more than 220 upstream and downstream enterprises, with an output value exceeding 30 billion yuan.
Ningbo, secretary of the Municipal Party Committee of Wuhu, said in his speech that in recent years, the robot industry in Wuhu has achieved development from scratch and from weak to strong. At present, the key point of the development of the robot and artificial intelligence industry is computing power and data support. As one of the top ten clusters of the national "East number and West calculation", Wuhu data center cluster has unique advantages and will provide strong data support and computing power for the development of the robot industry in the future.
Su Bo, director of the National Intelligent Manufacturing Expert Committee, said that in recent years, the rapid development of China's robot industry has injected new momentum into the development of digital networking and intelligent manufacturing industry, provided a new path, and also profoundly changed the production mode and industrial ecology of the manufacturing industry. In 2022, the operating income of China's robot industry has exceeded 170 billion yuan.
Wang Natural, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, believes that the current development of the robot industry is in the best period, and China has introduced a series of policy measures to encourage the development of the robot industry. With the acceleration of new industrialization, more and more fields have put forward the demand for robots. At the same time, with the accelerated evolution of a new round of scientific and technological revolution, new breakthroughs in new technologies such as artificial intelligence and biotechnology continue to emerge, which will make robot technology more advanced.
In the keynote report, Zhu Sendi, member of the National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee and honorary director of the National Intelligent Manufacturing Expert Advisory Committee, delivered a speech. He believes that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, in order to promote the high-quality development of the robot industry, it is necessary to do a good job of "application traction" and "two-wheel drive". Under such a large pattern, enterprises in the robot industry should seize the opportunity to improve from seven aspects such as lean production, digital transformation and collaborative development.
Suzanne, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Robotics, shared the current situation, trends and future prospects of global robot development. She said that in 2021 and 2022, China's industrial robot installed capacity accounted for more than 50% of the world, and this momentum is expected to continue. In the next few years, the market demand for some collaborative robots will remain strong, and ease of use will be an important selling point for collaborative robots.
It is worth noting that during this conference, the selection of TOP enterprises in China's robot industry was officially launched, and the China Robot + Education collaborative promotion phalanx was officially established. The Robot branch of China Machinery Industry Federation established a special preparatory group for precision reducer and joint work, and appointed the head of the preparatory working group.
In the round table dialogue session, the participants exchanged views on robot technology innovation, industrial agglomeration and regional development. In addition to the main forum, the conference also held "robot industry chain innovation and Development Conference", "Robot industry chain collaborative development Conference", "robot + health industry collaborative promotion Forum and work", "robot + hardware industry collaborative promotion Forum and work", "China robot industry talent construction Conference" and other activities to gather industry development consensus. Help the robot industry to develop in high quality.
