GUANGZHOU: Installing cables on live power lines. Cleaning skyscraper windows hundreds of metres above the ground. Chasing birds away from airport runways.
These are jobs long considered too dangerous, repetitive or labour intensive for humans.
At the Canton Fair in Guangzhou which is China’s largest trade exhibition first launched in 1957 and held twice yearly, Chinese companies are showing how robots may increasingly be able to do them instead – and some overseas buyers are already placing orders for the machines.
Across the exhibition halls of the current spring session running from Apr 15 to May 5, and featuring more than 32,000 exhibitors across various sectors, machines can be seen climbing walls, inspecting power lines and patrolling industrial sites, drawing crowds eager to see how automation could fit into their businesses.
Buyers from Europe, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Latin America say the technology could help address labour shortages, rising costs and workplace safety risks.
China’s industrial robot exports rose 48.7 per cent in 2025, making the country a net exporter of industrial robots for the first time, according to Chinese customs data.
China is already the world’s largest market for industrial robots, accounting for about 54 per cent of global installations in 2024, with roughly 295,000 units deployed, according to the International Federation of Robotics.
The shift raises a broader question: what could the spread of automation mean for workers around the world?
Kenneth Huang, a professor specialising in innovation and technology management at the National University of Singapore (NUS), said the shift could reshape labour markets but not necessarily through widespread job losses.
“Robotics will significantly reshape labour markets – but not through simple, across the board job destruction,” he said.
GLOBAL DEMAND FOR ROBOTS
Automation is already expected to have a substantial labour-market impact.
The World Economic Forum estimates that 22 per cent of today’s jobs could be created or displaced by structural labour-market changes by 2030, while 41 per cent of employers plan to reduce their workforce where AI can automate tasks, according to its Future of Jobs Report 2025.
China is also among the world’s most automated manufacturing economies. Its factories operate about 470 industrial robots for every 10,000 workers, far above the global average of 162, the International Federation of Robotics said.
For some overseas buyers, the appeal of automation lies in reducing labour intensive work.
Jhonier Jimenez, owner of Colombian construction company Conversion WM SAS, said he was particularly interested in a robot developed by Guangdong Crownpower Electric Power Technology Development (Crownpower Tech) to install connectors on live power lines.
For companies carrying out infrastructure work, tasks such as electrical installation can also involve additional safety risks.
“If you can eliminate that part, (it) is better for us,” Jimenez said.
Even so, he said automation should not necessarily be seen as a threat to workers.
“It’s not a risk. (It is an) opportunity to explore new fields for new skills for the people.”
Others see automation as a way to improve efficiency in service industries.
Brazilian entrepreneur Geraldo Patury Accioly Neto, who runs a cleaning services business, said he was particularly interested in machines designed to clean windows and floors.
“The window cleaning and the self-cleaning for floors … both of them were very interesting for us,” he said.
His company bought a window-cleaning machine at the fair and may purchase more if the technology proves reliable.
“Yes, this is the first purchase. We may do more purchases for the window cleaning,” Neto said.
While acknowledging concerns that automation could replace some jobs, he said robots could also improve productivity.
“Some jobs will be more effectively done by robots and AI than by persons. And people can do other things.”
TAKING ON DANGEROUS JOBS
Many of the machines attracting attention at the Canton Fair are not humanoid robots designed to resemble people.
Crownpower Tech, the company behind the live power line robot, has also developed machines for other power grid maintenance work, including removing ice from overhead lines and applying insulation coatings to electrical equipment.
While most of its sales are currently within China, Li Shuzhang, a brand manager at the company, said enquiries are emerging from Vietnam, Brazil, Europe and parts of South America.
Some robots are designed for dangerous situations beyond industrial maintenance.
At Chinese robotics company Rotunbot, patrol robots are used to monitor large facilities such as airports and oilfields.
The machines can patrol vast areas for hours, detect risks and even chase birds away from airport runways to help prevent aviation incidents.
In emergency situations, the robots can also be sent ahead of human responders to assess threats.
“Our view is that this is an era of human machine collaboration,” said Duan Tianye, the company’s vice general manager for sales and partnerships.
“For emergency situations, the robot can go in first to investigate and reduce risk before people step in.”
Inside factories, robots are increasingly being used to handle repetitive tasks.
Guangzhou-based Shiyuan Electronics, a company that started out producing circuit boards for television panels, is now expanding into robotics and artificial intelligence.
At its booth, robotic arms demonstrate how they can pick up and sort items with extremely fine precision.
But the company’s goal is not just accuracy. It is flexibility.
Traditional automated production lines are often designed for a single product and can take months to redesign when manufacturing needs change.
Shiyuan’s robotic systems aim to shorten that process by allowing machines to learn and adapt to different tasks more quickly.
“In the past, if you changed the product, you had to redesign the entire production line,” said He Guang, Public Relations director from Shiyuan Electronics.
“With robots that can learn different tasks, factories can switch much faster.”
He said robots are also often used to take over routine tasks.
For example, a shop employee might spend half an hour each day cleaning.
“With robots, they only need five minutes,” he said.
“The remaining 25 minutes can be used to create more value.”
THE DOWNSIDES: JOBS AND RISKS
Still, the spread of automation raises concerns about the future of work.
If machines can increasingly perform tasks once done by humans, what happens to the workers who used to do them?
Li from Crownpower Tech said the company’s chairman had encountered resistance while promoting the technology overseas.
In Australia, labour unions have also raised concerns about automation replacing workers. In July last year, Australia’s Finance Sector Union criticised Commonwealth Bank after the lender cut 45 roles following the rollout of an AI voice bot system to handle customer enquiries.
“That kind of conflict exists between social development and people’s livelihoods,” he said.
Some robotics companies said such concerns are understandable, but argued that automation is more likely to change how people work rather than eliminate jobs entirely.
Zhang Zhizhong, founder of Chinese robotics company X-Human, said robots are often introduced in roles that are already difficult to fill or involve significant safety risks.
“I think people shouldn’t worry,” he said. “We want to bring those workers down from high-altitude work and let them operate and manage the machines instead.”
Duan from Rotunbot said robots are often deployed to handle initial checks or risky tasks before human workers step in.
“We believe this stage is more about human-machine collaboration,” he said.
Experts said the wider spread of automation will also raise regulatory and governance challenges.
Terence Ho, an adjunct associate professor in practice at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the NUS, added that governments will also need to help workers transition as automation spreads.
“Governments should identify jobs at risk from automation and help workers make career transitions through reskilling,” he said.
“As robots operate more closely with humans – in factories, public spaces and homes – clear standards are needed to define what robots can and cannot do,” he said.
According to the World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025, clerical roles such as cashiers, ticket clerks and administrative assistants are among those expected to decline as companies increasingly automate repetitive work.
“I think jobs that are purely cognitive in nature are at higher risk of displacement in the near future compared with those that involve physical tasks or manual dexterity,” Ho from NUS said.
Despite rapid advances in robotics, he said machines still lag behind humans in areas that require fine motor skills.
Eva Fan, a business strategy and growth consultant at LabTech, a Shenzhen-based strategy and growth consultancy, said automation is increasingly affecting jobs that were once considered difficult to replace.
“If we still think AI only replaces repetitive work, that view is already outdated,” she said, adding that AI systems are beginning to take on coordination, analysis and decision-support tasks that were once handled by knowledge workers and junior managers.
THE FUTURE OF WORK
Some analysts said the rise of Chinese automation exports reflects broader shifts in global industry.
Luigi Gambardella, president of ChinaEU, a Brussels-based association promoting cooperation between European and Chinese digital industries, said automation is changing the logic of industrial competition.
“What is being automated is not only a set of tasks, but a growing part of industrial execution,” he said.
As intelligent systems increasingly shape manufacturing, he said the most competitive economies will be those able to combine advanced machines with human expertise.
Fan said companies are investing in automation not simply because labour is expensive but because global operations have become more complex.
“Businesses expanding overseas must deal with regulatory changes, workforce training challenges and supply chain disruptions,” she said.
“Companies are investing in automation because they need production systems that are more stable, controllable and easier to replicate across markets.”
China’s vast manufacturing ecosystem also gives its companies an advantage, allowing robotics technologies to be tested and refined in real industrial settings before being sold abroad.
For now, many overseas buyers at the Canton Fair are still exploring possibilities rather than placing immediate orders.
But as technology improves and prices fall, machines designed to assist or replace human labour could become a more common Chinese export in the years ahead.
Huang from NUS said the impact of automation will likely be uneven across industries.
“Automation technologies are more likely to reshape jobs rather than simply replace them,” he said.