'Made in China' progresses as global industry undergoes transformation

PROGRESS IN ADVANCED INDUSTRY

The Hanover Fair is a miniature of the development of industry technology in its 71 years of history. As China has become one of the world's major manufacturers, over 1,000 Chinese companies participated the fair this year, ranking second after Germany.

China's home appliance maker Haier demonstrated its new industry idea: from mass production to mass customization. Taking into customers' preferences into consideration, a model fridge or washing machine was produced within six minutes.

At the booth of China's IT giant Huawei, a robot, empowered by the high-speed 5G technology, can analyze and process data in order to prevent a ball from falling out of a tray by constantly adjusting the position of the tray.

"I had thought Chinese products were simply cheap. But when I saw Haier and Huawei's cool technologies here I was really impressed," said Jorn Ids Heins, a student from the Netherlands.

Similar to Germany's Industry 4.0 concept, China unveiled a 10-year national plan, Made in China 2025, designed to upgrade the country's manufacturing industry. The plan aims to promote development in 10 key sectors, including robotics, aerospace equipment and new materials.

Since the plan was introduced in 2015, steady progress has been made in industrial capability, smart manufacturing, innovation, as well as product quality and branding.

Besides Huawei and Haier, the cloud service of heavy machinery maker SANY displayed the integration of traditional industry with intelligence. With the service, heavy machines and wind turbines can be monitored and their data analyzed so that they can be better maintained.

"China has a large number of high-quality professionals," said Ulrich Spiesshofer, CEO of ABB Group, the Zurich-headquartered industry giant expert in robotics, power and automation technology.

Spiesshofer added that China will continue to play an important role in artificial intelligence, and ABB will deepen its cooperation with Alibaba, Baidu and other Chinese companies.