Smart manufacturing needed

China should speed up efforts to boost the development of its manufacturing with artificial intelligence as part of its broader efforts to promote industrial transformation and as an alternative means to resolve its looming labor shortage.

To this end, the country should accelerate the building of an intelligent manufacturing system and a public-services platform as well. It also needs to make greater efforts to achieve breakthroughs in the independent manufacturing and industrialization of some key parts, equipment and systems in this sector. Only in this way can China's high-end manufacturing avoid excessive dependence on foreign technologies.

Intelligent manufacturing will also provide China with advanced equipment, such as robots, to replace workers in labor-intensive industries and enterprises that are increasingly plagued by labor shortages.