Leading automation company eyes partnership with China

HANOVER - Last September, Switzerland-based ABB Group demonstrated its hi-tech robot YuMi, which conducted an orchestra in Italy.

Ulrich Spiesshofer, chief executive officer of ABB, said YuMi, based on artificial intelligence (AI), learned to conduct in only 17 hours, showing a high level of learning ability.

Spiesshofer, whose company focuses on robotics, power, heavy electrical equipment as well as automation technologies, gave Xinhua an exclusive interview while attending the Hanover Fair that kicked off Monday.

Self-learning AI can be a good complement to human expertise in the industry, he said, adding that it can be used in all kinds of fields as "a real productivity booster".

"Today we are in digital-enabled automated industry," the CEO said. "In the future ... (AI) will really complement human potentials in a huge way."

Regarding the development of AI in China, he said "China is already playing and will play a major role in AI" and it's natural for companies like ABB to work with Chinese partners.

He mentioned Chinese companies with strong technology, such as Alibaba and Baidu, saying ABB wants to build partnerships with them.

Spiesshofer called China's efforts in developing AI impressive, especially in the education sector, where the technology has been widely adopted.

For him, Industry 4.0 has moved from "pure ambition to reality" since the concept was first proposed at the Hanover Fair 2011.

Industry 4.0, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution, is the current trend of combining advanced manufacturing with the Internet of Things. A connected industry, open data architecture, sensor-enabled devices, cloud-based data storage and AI-supported manufacturing are the new normal in industrial production.

In Spiesshofer's vision, future factories will be much smaller, closer to demand, and smarter with the help of self-learning AI.

Besides AI, ABB also sees great opportunity in the electric mobility market in China as half of the world's total sale of electric vehicles was made in China last year.

At the Hanover Fair, ABB unveiled its 350-kilowatt electric vehicle charging technology which enables electric cars to run 200 km after eight minutes of charging.