Editor's note: Tina Li is the CEO & co-founder of UFACTORY, which is specialized in developing and manufacturing consumer robotics systems. The article reflects the author's opinion, and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Currently, intelligent manufacturing mainly refers to the upgrading of industrial automation in the manufacturing industry. In the long term, along with our development of robots, it will be necessary to bring in foreign technology or even acquire foreign enterprises. 

At the moment, the development of robots is under the dual pressures of cost and performance. We hoped that the cost of domestically produced components would be reduced, but that has not happened.

In the future, regardless of it is a domestic or foreign robot, the cost is likely to be the same because the global industrial chain will remain almost the same worldwide. This means the cost is not the problem we need to consider. We develop our own core components to ensure we can control our core technologies.

What are the core technologies of robots? Core components are just one of the core technologies used in robots, which are a systematic technology. 

Comprehensive breakthroughs must be made from basic and cutting-edge technologies, common and key technologies, core components and software, and even application processes and system solutions. To do this will require global synergy and only in this way can we promote the rapid development of China's industrial robots and the entire robot industry.

In the United States, the main technological focus is on computing power, data accumulation, and effective algorithms. This will change our technical cooperation with the United States.

China is one of the largest markets for industrial robots in the world and it is expected to grow. Traditional industry will use robots to improve efficiency and combat rising labor costs and/or shortages. 

Industrial robots are also expected to be applied in everything from traditional industry to 3C industries, especially mobile phone manufacturing. The industry is expanding rapidly, and it is estimated that the market growth rate will still be as high as 40 or 50 percent in the next three years. Our market is the largest in the world, meaning we can achieve maximum integration of the industry chain.

It's known that foreign hardware costs are high, which means that the overall hardware iteration speed will be slower than China's, where it is already significant, especially in large-scale productions with complex processes and personalization. This means Chinese entrepreneurs can implement ideas faster and rapidly upgrade imperfect technologies.

China's industrial robots are imported mainly from the European Union (EU), Japan and the Republic Of Korea (ROK), and are exported mainly to countries along the Belt and Road. We learn from and complement each other by cooperating, and doing so is the only way to truly maximize intelligent manufacturing.

 (If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at opinions@cgtn.com.)