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Has China won the robot war?

China built its powerhouse economy by exploiting the powers of a low-wage economy.

For decades, huge numbers of workers toiled away tirelessly to manufacture products at very low cost; products that were eagerly snapped up by the citizens of Western nations who were overjoyed to get "cheap stuff".

Initially this Sino-tat was often of very poor quality and, as often as not, simply a copy of something designed and engineered by a Western company in the first place.

Over the years however, things have changed. They've changed a lot.

As can be seen in the plethora of seemingly good quality, reliable, (almost) affordable EVs that are now pouring out of China, Chinese industry has moved on from a reliance on copying and cheap labour. Now it has home-grown products that match, or in some cases even exceed, the quality of Western equivalents.

Despite this, the prices of Chinese-made products remain low. Perhaps not as low as they once were but still significantly lower than similarly spec'd domestically made items.

How can China do this and reduce or eliminate its reliance on a low-wage workforce?

Well no doubt there are still some Chinese workers who are operating at levels of remuneration that border on slavery but there has been a huge trend away from such things. These days China boasts one of the most sophisticated automation revolutions ever seen.

A cheap workforce of near-slaves has been replaced by armies of hi-tech robotics and automation.

Automated production lines are nothing new and Western companies have taken advantage of such automation for decades now. Indeed, Tesla is one company that has invested heavily and reaped rich rewards from such manufactuing technologies but now there's a new level of robotic automation appearing and China is leading the way.

I'm talking about humanoid robots, just like in so many science fiction novels and movies.

The future predicted by scifi writers is almost upon us and this was never more obvious at the recent Robot Olympics being held in China.

As seen in the video below, humanoid robots are now capable of incredible feats of strength, power, speed and dexterity that rival or exceed anything a human can do.

Whether it's sprinting, jumping, fighting or whatever, there's a humanoid robot that has been built and programmed to do it and do it surprisingly well -- although the fails are even more spectacular and funny.

Meanwhile, in the West, Tesla's Optimus seems to have gotten fanbois excited simply because it can serve a cold beverage in a very controlled environment

While Elon Musk was hyping up Tesla's robotics as someone in a lycra bodysuit pretended to be one, China has been quietly lifting their game and putting huge amounts of effort and investment into creating something very real and practical.

The big problem for the West is now that pretty soon they won't be able to claim they're placing tariffs or restrictions on Chinese imports to prevent the exploitation of cheap labour, because that will no longer be the case. China will be building things cheaper, faster, better than the West simply because they have better technology.

Interesting times ahead.

Carpe Diem folks!

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