Last week, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organized the World Robot Conference – where they showcased the latest advancements that China’s robotics industry has produced over the past several years.
According to the CCP, China’s humanoid robots are “catching up fast with global rivals,” with advances such as the incorporation of AI into some of its robots that have military capabilities.
We’re picturing mindless robot patrols enforcing the next ‘welded in’ pandemic lockdown, with deadl(ier) results.
As Anders Corr notes in The Epoch Times, China’s humanoid robots on display at the conference could easily be equipped with weapons and probably already have been. The People’s Liberation Army has demonstrated armed flying drones and quadruped AI robots that resemble dogs with machine guns mounted to their backs. The killer robot dogs can reportedly fire their weapons autonomously.
China’s rapid rise in robotics is state-directed and subsidized to the tune of over $1.4 billion, according to an official announcement in 2023. In 2012, China installed fewer than 15 percent of industrial robots globally. By 2022, that number increased to over 50 percent, with China installing over 250,000, the most in the world. By comparison, Japan and the United States installed just about 50,000 and 40,000, respectively.
In 2016, a Chinese company bought Germany’s Kuka, one of the world’s three leading industrial robot makers. The other two are Japan’s Fanuc and Switzerland’s ABB. Tesla is also a leading robot maker. It plans to deploy 1,000 humanoid Optimus robots in Tesla factories in 2025. Given the close connections of all four of these companies to China, there is a significant risk of technology transfers and IP theft, further driving China’s rapid rise in the robotics space.
Hellbound and Down 