Automation, intelligence and commercialization -- look at "the future development trend of robots and opportunities in China"

According to GGII data, the scale of mergers and acquisitions in the robot industry will exceed 15billion in 2016. At the same time, overseas mergers and acquisitions will increase.

2014 is the first year of robotics in China. According to GGII statistics, the number of industrial robot enterprises in China doubled compared with 2013, and quadrupled compared with 2012, reaching 958. Last year, the number of robot enterprises recorded a growth rate of 58.98%, reaching 1523.

Behind the "breakthrough" of data, an irrecoverable fact is that the relationship between human and robot will be put on the agenda. According to a McKinsey Global study, most jobs, including many high paying jobs, will become automated.

1、 Future automation: machine replacement & human-machine cooperation?

An online interactive information icon released by McKinsey shows the automation rate of all walks of life. For example, the automation rate of management positions with an hourly salary of $46 is 28%. Blue collar jobs are still the industry with the highest automation rate, and the automation rate of catering jobs with an hourly salary of $9 is 74%.

According to the data, during the National Day holiday this year, daijiapeng, general manager of Foxconn automation technology development committee, disclosed that more than 40000 robots have fully participated in the company's production process. These robots have been assigned to the production base in Zhengzhou, and a large number of computer / peripheral factories in Kunshan and Jiashan have also been installed.

At the same time with the replacement of machines, there is also man-machine cooperation.

The main application fields of industrial robots are concentrated in automobile, electronics, metals, plastics and chemicals, food and beverage, tobacco and other industries. Its core function is welding and brazing, in addition to handling / loading and unloading, assembly and disassembly, sealing, processing and so on. In fact, among these types of work, more than 90% of industrial automation operations cannot be completed by traditional robots, including mechanical pipe, material preparation, loading and unloading, packaging and so on, which have not yet been fully automated. Man machine cooperative robot can partially make up for the shortcomings of traditional industrial robots and complete mechanical management and other work. In addition, mobile robots equipped with industrial robot arms may also be one of the main directions for the development of the next factory.

2、 Future intelligence: high IQ & humanization?

In recent years, the simple and repetitive robot arm, which lacks intelligent development, has gradually withdrawn from people's cognition, and replaced by the continuous emergence of intelligent robots. Indeed, robots have been changing, becoming intelligent and "high IQ".

The so-called intelligent robot is actually to make the robot "easier to use". The reason why intelligent robots have high IQ is that they have a fairly developed "brain" - the central processing unit. The advantage of having high IQ is that robots can arrange actions according to their goals.

However, being endowed with IQ means that there will be ethical problems between robots and humans.

At present, the "three principles of robotics" in the robotics industry are:

Article 1: robots shall not endanger human beings. In addition, human beings should not suffer from negligence of danger;

Article 2: robots must obey human orders, except when the order violates Article 1.

Article 3: without violating Articles 1 and 2, robots must protect themselves.

However, even if there are principles, many experts in the industry still have considerable doubts about the ethics of robots. Hawking believes that "in the next 100 years, computers combined with artificial intelligence will become smarter than humans. At that time, we need to ensure that computers are consistent with our goals. Our future depends on the race between the increasing power of technology and the wisdom of using technology."

"Let computers be consistent with human goals" -- will we give robots high intelligence, while giving them the ability to think about human nature in the future?

3、 Future commercialization: increased sales & weaker price dividends & strong capital?

According to GGII research data, the global robot sales reached 236300 units in 2015, with a year-on-year increase of 11.6%. According to the existing order data, the global sales volume of industrial robots in 2016 was 258900 units, an increase of 6.5% year-on-year.

2016 is a year when the global robot industry continues to develop at a high speed. The industrial scale and market space continue to expand, and Asia has become the most important market. Since China became the largest market in the world in 2013, it will be the largest industrial robot market for the fourth consecutive year this year. It is predicted that the market sales volume will continue to maintain rapid growth in 2016, and the shipment volume will reach 85000 units, with a year-on-year increase of 24.03%.

However, under the bright sales data, the low price advantage of domestic robots is not optimistic. In terms of ontology, the price difference between domestic and imported products hovers around 20%. In the future, if there is no breakthrough in core component technology, the import price will approach the domestic price, and the price advantage of local manufacturers will gradually disappear. Even if there is a breakthrough in core components, this trend can only be postponed.

In terms of capital, as of the end of 2015, the scale of robot investment in the A-share market involved 13 billion yuan, about 2.7 times that of 2014. There are 23 new listed robot enterprises, of which about 60% are involved in the robot industry through mergers and acquisitions, most of which are concentrated in the field of industrial robots, and the number of enterprises involved in the field of service robots is relatively small, accounting for only 25%.

According to GGII data, the scale of mergers and acquisitions in the robot industry will exceed 15billion in 2016. At the same time, overseas mergers and acquisitions will increase.