Economic Observer, Feng Qingyan/Text. China's robotics industry has just begun to rise, barely past its "first year," yet Qu Daokui is already discarding "traditional robots." As CEO of Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd. and chairman of the China Robot Industry Alliance, he appeared at the Robot Industry Promotion Conference held in Wuhu, China's most typical robot industrial base, on December 13. His remarks once again cast a shadow over those entrepreneurs assembling and piecing together robots, stating that "the various supporting elements of the new generation of robots are already complete, and the era of service robots has begun."

　　Qu Daokui observes that while robots are still in the initial stages of market application, they are experiencing a reshuffle and turning point caused by the replacement of old and new technologies. Under these new changes, robots need to break through three key capabilities: decision-making, operation, and interaction. Without these breakthroughs, robots will remain traditional machinery.

　　"US President Obama has statistically shown the important role of robots, equating it to the advent of the steam engine. This means that the role of robots is more in the field of consumer goods, disrupting or changing existing methods and processes." Qu Daokui told the Economic Observer.

　　"The future market for service robots is virtually limitless," said Qu Daokui. Therefore, Siasun's first "robot town" is imminent. This is just the beginning; such towns will spread across the country like wildfire. Behind this lies Qu Daokui's deeper consideration: leveraging capital to build multiple robot towns and robot 5S stores nationwide, using Industry 4.0 thinking to promote the popularization of robots across the country. "Let's launch a 'people's war' for robots," Qu Daokui told the Economic Observer.

"Robot Town"

　　Unlike Siasun's early days, the comparison between domestic and foreign strengths was like that of a newborn baby versus a healthy, strong young adult. Qu Daokui believes that for powerful Chinese companies, mergers and acquisitions are an important means of achieving rapid growth and enhancing comprehensive strength. The vast domestic market and ample corporate funds make this an opportune time for mergers and acquisitions, "It's like a child reaching the age of 17 or 18, having a certain degree of self-sufficiency and the foundation for mergers and acquisitions."

　　Under the overall strategy of resource sharing and common use, adopting an "internal growth + external expansion" strategy, Qu Daokui continues to build capital platforms, including the establishment of several tens of billions of yuan-level funds for future investment. Moreover, in the past two or three years, Siasun has established a dedicated team to seek mergers and acquisitions opportunities globally. Siasun also participated in the early negotiations before KUKA's acquisition by Midea.

　　Beijing Huize Boyuan Robot Investment Co., Ltd. ("Huize Boyuan") is an investment platform under Siasun. Established in April 2014, this investment company has maintained a low profile, focusing on overseas mergers and acquisitions from its inception. However, Qu Daokui's approach is a combination of "industry and finance." Huize Boyuan is not just about mergers and acquisitions; it's more about using capital to promote the overall industrial layout.

　　Huize Boyuan successfully acquired the 110-year-old German educational institution, Tautlov, as one of 14 major Sino-German cooperation projects, marking China's first successful acquisition of a German educational institution. Subsequently, Siasun established the Sino-German Siasun Education Group in Shenyang. This acquisition gave Siasun two educational platforms, both domestically and internationally, specializing in cultivating talent in robotics and future intelligent manufacturing.

　　On December 23, Hao Zhangang, executive chairman of Huize Boyuan, visited Xiangtan High-tech Zone and expressed his willingness to cooperate, aiming to build a characteristic town—Siasun Robot Town—in the area, seizing the future economic high ground.

　　The Siasun Robot Town project will be a key project in the future. Its vision is to uphold the spirit of craftsmanship, adhere to the concept of integrated development of production, life, and ecology, and creatively integrate the robot industry, financial industry, cultural industry, tourism industry, and life supporting functions to create a five-in-one ecological intelligent manufacturing characteristic town. Once implemented, the project will effectively promote the upgrading of local enterprises from the Industry 2.0 era to the 4.0 era, forming a world-class robot innovation and production cluster.

　　According to Hao Zhangang, Huize Boyuan will rely on Siasun's strong technical support and its own capital advantages to build several model robot towns in South and East China. The robot towns will conduct comprehensive and systematic data analysis of the surrounding industrial system, provide corresponding solutions, attract robot manufacturing enterprises, and establish robot 5S stores for sales, display, maintenance, and leasing. The robot towns will also showcase future human living models in a concentrated way, applying advanced numerical control technology and automated facilities to daily production and life, with new breakthroughs in environmental development, medical care, and elderly and disabled care. Each such town will require an investment of over 5 billion RMB in basic infrastructure.

　　Hao Zhangang believes that the significance of robot towns lies in bringing the advanced technologies of robots and intelligent manufacturing to enterprises and the public, allowing them to experience them firsthand and spontaneously use advanced technological equipment to achieve transformation and upgrading. This is an effective attempt to transform technology into productive forces.

　　Qu Daokui told reporters that the feasibility of robot towns lies in having an innovative source, technical support, and capital assistance, which is a full manifestation of the platform effect.

　　Shenyang Siasun Robot & Automation Co., Ltd. is a high-quality enterprise directly under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, dedicated to the high-tech field of digital intelligent high-end equipment manufacturing. It has achieved 108 firsts in the history of China's robot industry development, is one of the manufacturers with the most complete robot product lines internationally, and is a leading enterprise in China's robot industry. Beijing Huize Boyuan Robot Investment Co., Ltd. is Siasun's investment and financing platform in the field of intelligent manufacturing, a capital operation company that quickly enters new industrial fields and perfects the industrial chain, with strong market capabilities.

　　Qu Daokui attempts to use robot towns as a tool to fight a "people's war" to promote robots, quickly transforming and utilizing the latest technological achievements in traditional industries.

Turning Point in Sight

　　Qu Daokui, who has always preferred to focus on R&D and only promote achievements after they are completed, feels that new changes are emerging in the robotics field, and the new generation of robots will play a role in more application areas. Traditional robots refer to the concept of automated equipment, focusing on adaptability in structured or unstructured environments, how to improve efficiency and expand scale. Today, the keywords for the new generation of robots are non-critical adaptability, which is also a new field of the US Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The various supporting elements of the new generation of robots are basically complete, and the era of service robots has begun.

　　Qu Daokui said that traditional robots, in terms of products, have a certain degree of continuity, and this stage will continue for three to five years, or five to eight years, but added value is almost impossible to sustain.

　　Qu Dao Kui's conclusion is supported by data and theory. At the Robot Industry Promotion Conference, Qu Dao Kui revealed statistics from the China Robot Industry Alliance on market conditions in the first half of 2016. The data shows that in the first half of 2016, sales of domestically produced robots exceeded 19,000 units, a comparable increase of 37.7%, and an actual sales increase of 70.8% year-on-year; the total market sales amounted to 2.66 billion yuan, a comparable increase of 23.9%, and an actual increase of 40%. (This is overall data for industrial robots, including AGVs and three-axis and above robots) Previous predictions indicated significant future growth in the 3C industry, but the 3C industry data shows that our market sales growth is significantly higher than the value share, meaning the number of robots in the 3C industry is disproportionate to its overall value share. Overall, sales are increasing, but the added value is decreasing rapidly.

　　Qu Dao Kui told the Economic Observer that the robot industry has entered an era of technological competition, as robot technology is developing rapidly, and the iteration cycle is becoming shorter. The robot industry has also entered an era of quality competition, relying on quality and functionality to build brands. Chinese robots must not become the substandard products that the world criticizes.

　　Faced with increasingly fierce competition, Qu Dao Kui's logic is that not only should robots become increasingly intelligent, but the strategies for making robots should also be intelligent. Siasun implements a "four-wheel drive" strategy, shifting from endogenous growth to "endogenous + exogenous" development, making simultaneous efforts in vertical layout of the industrial chain and horizontal expansion through mergers and acquisitions. To date, four major industrial sectors have been created: core robot components, series robot products, industry system solutions, and Industry 4.0, as well as three platforms: innovation platform, industrial platform, and financial platform, aiming to achieve the integration of production, research, finance, and education, forming a resource sharing platform.

　　In Qu Dao Kui's view, the world is on the eve of the second robot revolution. Big data, the Internet of Things, and cloud computing technologies will be applied to industrial manufacturing, transforming robots from simple automated equipment into "robots" that can obtain external information. The new generation of robots will need to understand how to perceive the environment and have the ability to adapt autonomously, and Siasun will also strengthen its layout in the field of machine perception systems.

Transformation from Products to Solutions

　　From the perspective of the international development of robots, following the roadmap of robots, there are five major areas: industry, national defense, (co-construction), medical care, and services. France's robot action plan, the UK's changes in autonomous systems, Japan's new robot revolution, including three major goals and future implementation measures, the next action plan, planning, etc., while China has "Made in China 2025", and released the future development plan for robots in March and April this year. Various countries regard robot intelligent manufacturing as a systematic development strategy, with both differences and divisions of labor, and collaborative development. The 13th Five-Year Plan includes several major areas of robots, components, and integrated applications. We say that a new round of robot revolution is coming, and China will play a huge driving or promoting role here.

　　The new manufacturing model has shifted from single equipment manufacturing to overall solutions. From the perspective of enterprises, enterprises need to purchase a systematic solution. At this time, whoever can provide the most comprehensive Industry 4.0 elements can win the market. This includes the ability to provide partners with services in three areas: intelligent warehousing, intelligent logistics, and intelligent manufacturing processes, as well as the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) capability that links the three parts together. Siasun has been proactively providing enterprises with a free systematic service solution to help them smoothly transition through this transformation. Next, the source of Siasun's core technology needs to change, shifting from independent research and development to an open platform business model innovation, integrating global technology, capital, and human resources to become a platform company, but ultimately the ownership remains with Siasun.

　　Today, Siasun's service robots have become a new economic growth point, driven by Qu Dao Kui's relatively forward-looking market judgment and layout. The service robots that Qu Dao Kui is optimistic about are also favored by capital. As early as 2005, the service robot project was launched within the company, and the company's first generation of home service robots was born in 2006. In 2010, Qu Dao Kui announced that the company officially entered this field, and products were gradually launched to the market in recent years.

　　Siasun and Qu Dao Kui can be regarded as "pioneers" in the application of industrial robots in China. Qu Dao Kui was born in Qingzhou, Shandong in 1961. About ten years before his birth, countries such as the United States and Japan began to apply robots to production; Qu Dao Kui's teacher, "Father of Chinese Robots" Jiang Xinsong, did not formally propose to the Chinese Academy of Sciences to conduct robot research until 1973, and the construction was unsuccessful at that time; Jiang Xinsong drafted the development plan for the automation discipline four years later, in 1977. That year, China's robot research and development began, and preparations for the transformation of research and development results into products did not begin until after 1995, until the establishment of Siasun Robot Company in 2000.

　　Siasun is one of the oldest robot companies in China, and it went public in 2011, becoming the "first robot stock in China." Currently, the company's total market value ranks among the top three in the international industry, and it has the largest robot industrialization base in China, with the highest growth rate in the global robot industry.

　　The robot industry has a high entry barrier, requiring high levels of technology, market, and capital. Siasun started with AGV mobile robots, and it took more than ten years for AGV mobile robots to become the company's flagship product. In 2007, the company's AGV mobile robots entered General Motors' global procurement system and were exported to more than 10 countries in Europe, America, and Asia. As of last year, the company has provided more than 100 intelligent robots to General Motors in the United States, breaking the history of China's robot products only being imported and not exported for nearly 30 years.

　　Qu Dao Kui began his research on robots after graduating in 1986 and joined Siasun Robot Company in 2000. As a robot researcher, he has undertaken nearly 20 scientific research projects, including national "85", "95", "15" scientific and technological projects, the "863" plan, major projects and special support projects of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and provincial and municipal scientific and technological plans, and developed high-performance robot controllers with independent copyrights, overcoming key technologies such as the open system architecture of robot controllers, laser navigation, multi-robot collaborative control, and management.

　　During his time as a researcher, Qu Dao Kui used independent technology to develop various types of robots with independent copyrights for the first time in China, including electric welding robots, arc robots, and high-speed loading and unloading robots. Qu Dao Kui has devoted himself to research and developed many excellent works, winning the National Science and Technology Progress Second Prize, the Chinese Academy of Sciences Science and Technology Progress First Prize, and was selected as a CCTV 2014 Annual Science and Technology Innovation Figure.

　　When asked about the transformation from scientist to entrepreneur, Qu Dao Kui said, "I am not an entrepreneur, nor a businessman. My work in business is driven by interest, hobby, and a sense of mission."