China Vanke leaves it to robots to take care of property management services

China’s second-largest developer also plans to go solo in Hong Kong this year

Reading Time:2 minutes

Quincy Chow, vice-president for sales and Marketing at Vanke Property (Hong Kong), says property management services is going hi-tech. Photo: Edward Wong

Published: 7:02am, 17 Jan 2018Updated: 7:45am, 17 Jan 2018

China Vanke is rapidly implementing the use of technology to improve the quality of life of families in nearly 1,800 projects in 65 cities on the mainland.

“Property development and management is heading hi-tech,” said Quincy Chow, vice-president for sales and marketing of the operation department at Vanke Property (Hong Kong), a wholly-owned unit of China Vanke.

“Robot cooks have been in use for some time now to prepare lunch for our staff in China and the application of artificial intelligence also extends to security surveillance. It saves on human resources and maintains a standardisation of services.”

The Hong Kong and Shenzhen-listed group’s founder and former chairman Wang Shi in 2015 said that 30 per cent of its property management services – from sweeping floors to guarding its estates – would be done by robots over the next 10 years.

The property developer, China’s second-largest with sales of 530 billion yuan (US$82.3 billion), believes in “3 Good” – good houses, good services and a good neighbourhood for its customers.

A couple look at an apartment model at a China Vanke sales centre in Guangzhou. The property developer is China’s second-largest with sales of US$82.3 billion. Photo: Xiaomei Chen

Towards this end the company’s Vanke Building Research Centre in Dongguan, in south-eastern Guangdong province, conducts research on environmentally friendly building materials, development and application of precast concrete modules and stormwater management demonstration systems. It even has a botanical garden which has more than 800 different plant species.