Swiss digital technology company ASEA Brown Boveri (ABB) announced a new $150 million investment in Shanghai, China to build the advanced, automated and flexible robotics factory, a cutting-edge centre where robots make robots.
The new Shanghai factory will feature a number of machine learning, digital and collaborative solutions to make it the most advanced, automated and flexible factory in the robotics industry, and an onsite research and development centre will help accelerate innovations in artificial intelligence.
Using a new, global design approach that ABB announced earlier this year, the factory will be able to dramatically increase both the breadth, type of robots, and depth, variants of each type, of robots that can be made on site, allowing greater and faster customization to meet the needs of customers. The company will also be able to combine this expanded portfolio of robotics into an almost limitless number of tailored solutions.
The new Kangqiao manufacturing centre, near ABB’s expansive China robotics campus, will combine the company’s connected digital technologies, including ABB Ability solutions, state-of-the-art collaborative robotics and innovative artificial intelligence research to create the most sophisticated and environmentally sustainable factory of the future. It is expected to begin operating by the end of 2020.