China advances in humanoid robots, biotech and space, in new plan to conquer the future

BEIJING: In 2001, the Steven Spielberg film, AI, starred a young Haley Joel Osment as a humanoid on a quest to be a real boy. This year, China unveiled a real-life version.
Yueqian, whose name stands for breakthrough and change, is modelled on a real teenager. Its maker, Li Boyang, the chief executive and co-founder of EX-Robots, said a humanoid “can provide service to us as a housekeeper in the family”.
“No matter whether it’s elderly people who live alone, or some young people or children, they all long for the companionship of such a robot,” Li added.
“In the past, many actions of our robots were automatic feedback based on different scenarios. This year, with the use of a large (artificial intelligence) model, this kind of feedback is no longer a set programme, but something that’s generative.”
The use of robotics in advanced manufacturing in China is already widespread. But humanoid robots are now part of a plan to conquer future industries and turn China into a global leader in science and technology.
The buzzword behind this plan is “new quality productive forces”, which state enterprises, local governments, entrepreneurs and Chinese media are all discussing how to implement.
The term was coined by Chinese President Xi Jinping last year, when he called on his nation to mobilise these forces to drive the economy to new heights.
Then in March, the top policy priority listed in Premier Li Qiang’s maiden work report to the National People’s Congress was to “modernise the industrial system, and developing new quality productive forces at a faster pace”.
These forces have gained momentum since, for example in humanoid robotics and AI.
According to China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, new quality productive forces also cover areas such as biotechnology, quantum computing, nuclear energy, advanced semiconductors and even resource exploration on the moon and Mars.
But can the strategy lift China’s economy out of its current doldrums as the country grapples with a downturn in the property market, youth unemployment, an ageing population, local government debt and great-power rivalry, the programme When Titans Clash asks.
WATCH: China advances in humanoid robots, biotech and space — Can it succeed? (46:57)
When it comes to China’s youth unemployment, the problem is well-publicised, but what is less widely known is that many Chinese manufacturers are looking for workers. The authorities forecast a shortage of nearly 30 million manufacturing workers by next year.
Enter the AI-powered humanoid robots, which look and move like humans and could eventually perform tasks the way humans do — maybe even better.
In recent months, Chinese companies Huawei, EX-Robots, Unitree Robotics and Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre have launched different versions of humanoid robots that can, for example, babysit children, chop carrots, play chess, make conversation and, of course, work in factories.
Wang Wen, the dean of Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, believes that this branch of new quality productive forces has huge potential, particularly as China’s population ages and manufacturers face a labour shortage.
“China’s robot industry has experienced double-digit growth in market share every year for the past 10 years. … This has led to a doubling of the robot industry in China approximately every three years,” said the professor.
“Robots can replace humans in areas of production that are either neglected or high-risk, for example … in tasks related to firefighting, forest rescue (and) earthquake relief.
“In some factories, only a few people are working (alongside robots). But they’ve achieved the output that would’ve required thousands, even tens of thousands, of people in the past.”
These factories are “dark factories”, he added. “They don’t even need lights to operate.”
Another aspect of new quality productive forces that is gaining attention is China’s biotech sector.
A decade ago, China focused on the manufacturing of generic drugs. But in recent years, it started making international headlines with its new drugs and biotech inventions.
As of now, the United States and Europe are leading the way in this area.
Ozempic, for instance, was the world’s top weight-loss drug last year, with global sales of about US$13.9 billion (S$18.7 billion). Its maker, Novo Nordisk, is Europe’s most valuable company, with a market capitalisation of US$446 billion now.
But in China, several drugs competing with Ozempic are due to be launched by 2026. One of them is Mazdutide, launched by Suzhou-based Innovent Biologics, which has begun late-stage trials.
China has also come up with a list of cancer drugs in recent years, with more in the pipeline — with governmental help.
In Shanghai alone, there are five biotech research and transformation platforms. The government-backed Shanghai Centre of Biomedicine Development, for instance, provides services in concept validation, pilot production, financing and regulation support for over 100 companies annually, according to Chinese media.
This type of government support for biotech growth can also be seen in cities such as Beijing, Suzhou, Hangzhou and Wuhan.
Western pharmaceutical companies are taking notice. This year, science and technology company Merck increased its investment in a collaboration centre in Shanghai by 14 million euros (S$20 million) to support new research facilities.
“We have a very large number of clinical trials that we’re running in China,” said Peter Guenter, CEO of healthcare at Merck. “And we systematically consider China as one of our priority markets for any new development that we do.
“There’s a lot of very interesting innovation coming out of China (that) can serve patients across the globe. And we’ve (formed), relatively recently, some major partnerships with Chinese biotech and biopharma companies.
“The idea is that we co-develop (some of their innovations).”
Some policymakers in the West, however, disagree with this approach to Chinese biotech.
In September, the US House of Representatives passed a biosecurity bill that would force American companies to cut ties with certain Chinese biotech firms involved in contract drug research and manufacturing.
“A lot of this has to do with the pandemic,” said Jimmy Goodrich, a senior adviser for technology analysis to the Rand Corporation.
“Americans were quite shocked to realise that basic goods were … almost entirely being produced in China. And that, for example, really hurt when (they didn’t have enough) things like masks, protective equipment, medical devices … during the pandemic.
“This was a real big wake-up call, particularly for Washington policymakers. … They’re worried that in a real global crisis, perhaps even in a future conflict, … they won’t be able to forever access all these goods and items.”
As for China, “deepening the reform of the science and technology system is an inevitable choice to enhance national competitiveness and respond to external risks”, according to Chinese Minister of Science and Technology Yin Hejun.
“China’s development faces many challenges, such as external attempts to create technological barriers and sever global innovation and industrial chains,” he penned in a recent article in Chinese state newspaper People’s Daily.
“The competition between nations is essentially a competition of strength, with the key being the competition of scientific and technological innovation capabilities.”
With the “Made in China 2025” industrial plan, the country has already emerged as a global leader in electric vehicles, solar energy and batteries. But its new plan for tech supremacy is larger in scope — and extends beyond planet Earth.
China has laid out its ambitions of becoming a global leader in space science, in a range of research areas including black holes, Mars and Jupiter, and its plan to start building a research station on the moon.
According to a Chinese government press release last month, scientists will “explore the habitability of celestial bodies in the solar system, and exoplanets”.
The first stage of that plan is ongoing. After China collected soil from the moon earlier this year, researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences have figured out a way to extract water from the material.
“Basically, a concave mirror or a Fresnel lens will be used to focus sunlight to heat the lunar soil to more than 1,500 degrees Celsius and melt it, which will produce a lot of water vapour,” said scientist Wang Junqiang from the academy’s Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering.
“We can collect the water vapour and use it as drinking water. … We can also electrolyse the water to obtain oxygen and hydrogen, (which) is an energy source. We can … use it to generate electricity in fuel cells.
“In addition, heated lunar soil can generate iron as well as ceramic glass. … Ceramic and steel are essential for building materials too. So we can build houses on the moon.”
Whether it is about building on the moon, coming up with cancer drugs or mass-producing humanoid robots, these are all research-focused industries.
Other aspects of new quality productive forces, such as advanced semiconductors, nuclear energy and nanomaterial, also require leaps in science.
These industries “represent the direction of a new round of technological revolution”, said Wei Qijia, the director of the industrial economy research office at the National Development and Reform Commission’s State Information Centre.
“The development of these industries is supported by … overall quantity as well as the advantages of vast market demand (and) industrial supporting capacity.”
According to Goodrich, however, high-tech companies will have only a certain share of any economy. “So can China rely on these small groupings of advanced industries to boost its growth? Just how many jobs will these industries deliver?” he questioned.
Many new jobs in mature economies are still in service industries including finance and healthcare, as well as in construction and real estate, he said — “the areas today where China is really struggling”.
So is China taking too many risks?
“On the one hand, risks do indeed need to be controlled,” said Renmin University’s Wang. “But the best way to control risks is not by avoiding or eliminating them. Instead, it’s through development that we dilute and resolve those risks.
“On the other hand, … risks are always proportional to potential profits. The greater the risk, the greater the potential profit. … The current investment in new quality productive forces is very active because there’s great potential for profit.
Regardless of the risks, China’s leaders believe they must press on “towards the grand goal of building China into a leading country in science and technology”, as Xi urged in June.
Failing to achieve this goal may have dire consequences, warned Renmin University’s Wang. “Nearly 200 years ago, China was invaded and bullied by foreign powers because our productivity at that time was (low), and we were unable to defend ourselves.
“This historical lesson constantly reminds the Chinese people that now, in terms of productivity, we must surpass the world’s top levels. And in technological innovation, we can’t lag behind; indeed, we must strive to lead.”
Watch this episode of When Titans Clash here.