Beijing robot meeting highlights cooperation

"International cooperation is of crucial importance to build a well-organized global industrial chain. We help foreign companies better tap into the Chinese market and frequent communication can generate new ideas for cutting-edge technologies," Yu said.

HIT Robot Group was established in December 2014 with funding from the Heilongjiang provincial government and the Harbin Institute of Technology, an elite Chinese university that has conducted years of cutting-edge research on robotics. The university was the manufacturer of China's first space robot and lunar vehicle.

Yu said the company has also established a venture capital fund to invest in promising artificial intelligence startups in the United States.

Yang Jing, general manager of self-driving business division at JD, said the large scale commercialization of robots will come earlier than most people have expected.

"Systematic unmanned logistics solutions, for instance, will be far more efficient and cost-effective than human delivery services in future. We are now already offering unmanned delivery services in a string of universities," Yang added.