Robots are to be the focus of the Hon Hai Group’s (鴻海) strategic development, and the company is to focus on Internet of Everything (IoT) key technologies, the group’s chairman Terry Gou (郭台銘) said.
In an interview with Chinese media on Tuesday, Gou said that the introduction of “industrial robots” to the manufacturing sector was an irreversible trend, but would not reduce the number of workers employed in factories.
He said robots are the focus of the company’s strategic development and that Hon Hai, also known as the Foxconn Technology Group (富士康), would take robotic services internationally in cooperation with China’s Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴) and Japan’s SoftBank.
Gou made the remarks prior to attending yesterday’s World Internet Conference in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province.
The theme of the event is “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed by All — Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny.”
Hon Hai, the world’s largest electronics manufacturing services provider, reached an agreement in mid-June with SoftBank and Alibaba to invest in SoftBank Robotics Holdings Corp.
An initial batch of Pepper robots, developed by SoftBank and manufactured by Hon Hai in its Shandong plant in China, sold out in one minute in June.
Hon Hai has also produced industrial robotic arms and 48,000 have been installed in Hon Hai plants, including more than 2,000 self-developed mechanical arms in the company’s Kunshan factory.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained