AI integration fuels manufacturing upgrade

SHANGHAI — A wheeled humanoid robot picked its way through tightly stacked bins mimicking real factory conditions at an exhibition booth in Shanghai last week, identifying targets, choosing gripping points and placing items without human intervention.

At the 26th China International Industry Fair in Shanghai, where more than 3,200 exhibitors from 24 countries and regions unveiled nearly 300 new products, the focus highlighted a shift in how artificial intelligence is being applied in Chinese manufacturing: from staged demonstrations to real production processes.

"The system has already been validated in a real production environment," said Li Zhipeng, head of solutions at the robot's developer JAKA Robotics. At a headlight factory of a leading auto parts maker, the cycle time per bin fell from 105 seconds to 28 seconds after on-site iteration, while the deployment period for new scenarios was cut from 12 months to 57 days, he said.

Beyond physical machines, AI agents are beginning to take part in production decisions. Black Lake Technologies, a leading industrial AI company, displayed more than 10 decision-making agents covering quotation, engineering, scheduling and order tracking, which share information around a single order, enabling downstream plans to adjust as conditions evolve.

With the development of AI agents, industrial knowledge and production experience are no longer solely dependent on individual accumulation, but can be consolidated within systems for faster replication and application, said the company's founder and CEO Zhou Yuxiang.

At the Siemens booth, more than 20 new products were unveiled, including 13 developed in China. Xiao Song, president of Siemens China, described the country as one of the world's most important industrial markets and a key application field for future industrial AI.