Revealed: the 10 billion yuan masterplan to turn Midea into China’s robot powerhouse
China’s largest maker of home appliances wants to take the next step in manufacturing: build robots
Midea Group Co., hot on the heels after buying a German robotics maker, is planning to spend 10 billion yuan (HK$11.7 billion) to build a factory in southern China to expand its capacity to assemble automatons.
The 15-year project is aimed at enhancing Midea’s capacity to produce robots for sale, as well as upgrading its capability in intelligent manufacturing. The innovation centre and factory, occupying 270,000 square metres of land, will include clusters of buildings, several factories and a research centre.
By 2025, a total of 17,000 industrial robots will be produced from the Midea factory, according to the planning bureau’s notice, citing Midea’s plan. A spokeswoman for Midea’s public relations firm Brunswick confirmed Midea’s plan by telephone, declining to identify herself.
The investment underscores Midea’s ambition to lead China’s forays into automation and robotics. The company, based in southern China’s Guangdong province, is the country’s biggest maker of air conditioners, refrigerators and so-called white goods appliances, employing as many as 135,000 people in the country and overseas.
China’s factories bought and installed 68,000 industrial robots last year, a 17 per cent increase from 2014, making the country the world’s largest market for automation.
