With the rapid rise of AI and hardware technologies, a wide range of robots that target consumers are rolling off production lines. In today's episode of our tech frontier series, we find out that what used to be familiar scenes in sci-fi movies are becoming daily realities.

This is what happens in a robot restaurant in Shanghai. In the restaurant, all kinds of services from taking orders to food delivery and entertainment.

ZHOU XIAOHU, MANAGER ROBOT MOLI RESTAURANT "My restaurant covers 1,000m2. A traditional restaurant of the same size needs to hire at least 15 waiters, but I only need 5 with the help of robots."

Now, robots have walked down from factory production lines and research labs to become part of everyday life.

DING NING, ASSOCIATE DEAN CUHK-SZ INSTITUTE OF ROBOTICS & INTELLIGENT MANUFACTURING "Service robots have been widely used in recent years, especially after 2015. From house cleaning to undertaking security and inspection tasks in shopping malls. The R&D of robots for special environments also witnessed steady development. This kind of robots can replace workers to undertake dangerous tasks in special environments. But the market is not as big."

FUTURE WISE has a unique business insight in large-scale manned entertainment mech devices.

HAN LEI, GENERAL MANAGER FUTURE WISE "We also want it to be used for entertainment purposes that enables more people to really experience mech driving by themselves."

As a company that has been in the service robot market for many years, CANBOT has a totally different product positioning.

ZHAO BOTAO, MARKET DIRECTOR CANBOT "We rely on three types of business for profit. The first is robot for scaled-production, including humanoid service robot for commercial use, partner type family intelligent robot and table size cute robot. We have also developed online and offline sales channels for these robots. The second is OEM customized robot. Some important customers would demand for customization, like Wangzai Robot for Sogou. The third is robot for lease, which we call robot sharing. For example, in a shopping mall, a store can rent some robots at a good price, and then sublease the robots to other brands."

With the accelerated development of an aging society and the continuous growth in the demand of healthcare and education, service robots in China has huge market potential and much room for development. At the same time, interruptive technologies like deep learning, big data and cloud computing are making robots more capable of undertaking complicated and professional tasks. Service robots will grow faster than industrial robots to become the next growth point of the robotics industry.

ZHAO BOTAO, MARKET DIRECTOR CANBOT "Currently, service robots are still in the starting-off periods with most products being only early prototypes to test the market. The application of service robots is still limited. However, with the change in social structures, such as the development of an aging society, and the rise in the cost of labor, the market will be much larger as we constantly improve our technologies and reduce the cost of products."