Zhuhai, southern China — When President Trump arrives in China this week for a high-stakes summit with Xi Jinping, securing investment from Chinese companies — including to help modern American factories — is expected to be on his list of priorities.
But if Mr. Trump is hoping to secure investment to help bring blue-collar jobs back to America, a CBS News visit to a massive Chinese factory suggests that ship may have sailed.
Inside a cavernous industrial building on the outskirts of Zhuhai, in southern China, there’s a factory of the future. Hundreds of yellow robotic arms move in sync along a 1,500-foot assembly line, putting together some 4,000 components every 10 seconds for air conditioning units.
Owned by Gree, China’s largest air conditioning maker, the facility is what’s known as a “dark factory.” It operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, controlled by artificial intelligence.
Gree general manager Chen Huadong says it’s the future of manufacturing.
“This is how future intelligent factories will look like, with AI-supported robots everywhere,” he told CBS News, “working in real time.”
In the nerve center of the operation, giant screens show real-time data on production, global sales and delivery.
About 60% of Gree’s production is exported overseas, including significant sales in North America.
The company has even been advertising in Times Square.
China already accounts for roughly 30% of global manufacturing output overall, and that’s expected to rise to almost 50% over the next four years.
According to Chen, Chinese manufacturing has more to offer Western markets than products, however.
“Gree is not only capable of manufacturing high-quality air conditioners, but also high-quality factories,” he told CBS News.
A factory the size of Gree’s would typically employ around 10,000 workers. But the dark factory only needs 1,000, a third of whom are engineers. It is real-world evidence of the dramatic rate at which machines are replacing humans in the workforce.
“I think in the future, physical work will get less and less,” Chen told CBS News. “But the skills and workers to maintain AI equipment will grow. … artificial intelligence has transformed the way businesses operate.”
Chen’s assessment is that factories around the world will move “toward high levels of automation,” with robots doing more and more of the work, but “as a result, future production lines will require a large number of engineers to design, plan, install, inspect and maintain them. This will create a significant number of job opportunities.”
“Our workers are transitioning and upgrading in this direction,” he added.
The question is, will America’s?
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