A consortium of Chinese companies, municipalities and investors — including Siasun, the largest robotics firm in China and the city of Guangzhou — have inked a deal to set up a $20 million R&D center in Israel dedicated to developing robot technology that China can use to modernize and automate its industrial base.
The investment follows the September establishment of a Sino-Israeli Robotics Institute (SIRI) as the centerpiece of a new $2 billion industrial park in Guangzhou.
The new Israeli R&D center will develop technology and robots worked on by Chinese and Israeli researchers in Israel. Products developed will be mass produced in China. In addition to industrial robots, the institute will develop robot “servants” – waiters, cleaners, security guards and customer service agents, and robotic assistants for construction sites, where finding manpower to do heavy work is becoming difficult.