Rise of the Robots

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
You're listening to an Airwave Media Podcast.

**SPEAKER_2** (0:05)
A massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, especially these days. Eight different settings, adjustable intensity, plus it's heated, and it just feels so good. Yes, a massage chair might seem a bit extravagant, but when it can come with a car, suddenly it seems quite practical. The Volkswagen Tiguan, packed with premium features like available massaging front seats, it only feels extravagant.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:37)
Rowhome Productions.

**Jane Perlez** (0:41)
This project is made possible by the generous support of the Carnegie Corporation.

**Frank Zhou** (0:49)
So we're at the World Robot Conference at the heart of Beijing, and I've found a humanoid robot that can actually speak English.

**SPEAKER_3** (0:56)
Of course, Master. I can communicate with you in English as well.

**Frank Zhou** (1:00)
Why are you referring to me as Master?

**Jane Perlez** (1:03)
Summer 2025, Beijing. Hundreds of Chinese robot companies are packed into a convention center, and Face-Off's very own associate production master, Frank Zhou, was there and sent me some snapshots from the convention floor.

**Frank Zhou** (1:19)
This is like your middle school science fair if you had billions of dollars to your middle school science fair. I mean, there must be thousands, if not 10,000 people here right now.

**Jane Perlez** (1:28)
And more than 1,500 robots too. Factory bots, home care bots, surveillance bots, musician bots, robot dogs. It was the largest gathering of robots the world has ever seen.

**Frank Zhou** (1:42)
This one is playing the piano. Aside from some terrible misnodes, it seems to be doing pretty well.

**Jane Perlez** (1:52)
Frank spoke with scientists, government officials and sales execs. But his most surprising run-in was with a platinum blonde humanoid robot named Leo.

**SPEAKER_6** (2:03)
Multiple people have talked about how good looking this platinum blonde one is.

**Frank Zhou** (2:09)
This has eyes that blink for one, but also that seem to wander as it speaks as if it's always looking for its next conversation partner that isn't you.

**Jane Perlez** (2:21)
Just what we need, a social climbing robot. But Frank plowed ahead.

**Frank Zhou** (2:27)
So let's see if we can test it out.

**SPEAKER_7** (2:32)
Hello, I'm Leo, a robot that serves women.

**Frank Zhou** (2:37)
Can you respond to all questions hereafter in English?

**SPEAKER_3** (2:41)
Sure, if that's what you prefer. A gentle breeze ruffles the short hair on the forehead, and a smile is raised at the corner of the mouth.

**Jane Perlez** (2:50)
So it doesn't exactly have its head screwed on right. But the future of robotics in China is promising. So promising, in fact, that Leo the robot was soon spouting off the statistics to Frank.

**SPEAKER_7** (3:03)
China is the world's largest robot market. The market for humanoid robots is expected to expand rapidly at a rate of 63% per year, reaching $3.4 billion in 2030

**Jane Perlez** (3:16)
We've cut the rest for the sake of time. But clearly, Leo had a lot to say about the future of robots in China. And that future isn't just about humanoids. Those might be fun and flashy, but there are actually robots powering China's industrial economy right now. In fact, there are now more robots working in China than the rest of the world combined. They are filling up China's factories and supply lines, and they were also on the convention floor.

**Frank Zhou** (3:48)
That was one of the organizers of the conference talking about the high efficiency of the Yaskawa Shogong robots. Let's hear it.

**Jane Perlez** (4:02)
China is pouring billions of dollars and its sharpest engineering talent into the development of the exploding robotics industry. The entire convention was greenlit by the Chinese government. More than $20 million worth of robotics was sold that weekend alone. So what does this all mean for China's bid for high tech manufacturing dominance and America's race to keep up? How will these robots reshape the future of our superpower economies? I'm Jane Perlez and this is Face-Off, a show about U.S.-China relations. Today on the show, Robots. The race is on to integrate robots into all corners of Chinese life, from its factories to family homes. Our guest has seen much of this development firsthand. Alberto Moel spent years as a robot company executive. He is now a professor of practice at the University of Hong Kong.
We started our conversation by simply defining robotics.

**Alberto Moel** (5:14)
Any process that is three-dimensional involves embodiment of human action, or animal action for that matter, that gets automated. You can consider a robot. So a humanoid's a robot, a mobile robot's a robot, a stationary robot doing welding in a car factory's a robot, a piece of software is not a robot.