During the epidemic prevention and control period, the global industrial automation and digitalization trend accelerated. Many countries have actively introduced industrial measures, increased education and training, and improved corporate competitiveness to seize new opportunities for industrial transformation.

  The "Future Work Report 2020" recently released by the World Economic Forum stated that global automation and digitalization trends are accelerating. At present, more than 80% of the global companies are accelerating their deployment and advancing the digitalization of work processes, while 50% of companies hope to accelerate the automation of some positions. The report predicts that in the next five years, the wave of technology-driven automation will create 97 million new jobs. Countries should increase their “retraining” and “skills upgrading” efforts for employees.

  Automation and digital technology show their talents 

  A report from the Japan Robot Industry Association shows that the number of robot exports from Japan in the second quarter of this year increased by 13% year-on-year. In the Eurozone, the number of jobs in the computer programming field did not decrease but increased. According to data from the US International Trade Commission, in the first eight months of this year, US merchandise imports fell 11% year-on-year, but imports of industrial robots increased 5%.

  Through cooperation with the artificial intelligence company Brain Corp, the Sam Club, a subsidiary of the American retail company Wal-Mart, plans to continue to deploy 372 new automatic floor cleaners to its stores this fall, and these small robots also come with a function-analyzing shelf inventory. Walmart said that due to the needs of epidemic prevention and control, shoppers are increasingly favoring shopping experiences that have less contact with others. Robots and artificial intelligence can provide better solutions and help reduce costs.

  Automation and digital technology have also shown their skills in areas such as food delivery, express delivery, temperature measurement, and nucleic acid sampling. The International Association of Electrical and Electronic Engineers commented that robots have become an indispensable "frontline worker" for epidemic prevention and control, and have played a key role in hospitals, offices and cities.

  The UVD disinfection robots and service robots produced by Danish Blue Ocean Robotics have become the "net celebrities" in many European hospitals. The ultraviolet light beams emitted by the ultraviolet irradiation lamps on this robot can destroy the DNA of bacteria, viruses and other harmful microorganisms. And ribonucleic acid, kill 99.99% of pathogens. The UVD disinfection robot can kill a house in only 10 minutes, and can avoid the risk of infection caused by manual disinfection.

  During the epidemic prevention and control period, Japan’s Tsubakimoto Group’s demand for automatic sorting and transmission equipment has soared. The company has also cooperated with start-up technology companies to develop an online truck transport delivery system. Drivers can complete cargo delivery without contact, saving time and reducing The risk of exposure to infection. According to Japanese media reports, the demand for unmanned automation systems in Japan will continue to increase in the future. By 2025, the demand for next-generation logistics systems alone will reach 651 billion yen (1 yuan equals approximately 15.6 yen).

  Introduced policies to help new technology applications 

  The International Federation of Robotics predicts that the number of professional service robots in the world will increase by 38% this year and will continue to grow in the next two years. From 2020 to 2022, approximately 2 million new robots will be installed globally. Research by the management consulting company PricewaterhouseCoopers shows: "Artificial intelligence, robots and other forms of intelligent automation will bring huge economic benefits, and will contribute 15 trillion US dollars in output value to the world by 2030." Some countries have actively introduced related issues. Policies provide an important impetus for automation reform.

  The application scenarios of robots in Japan are becoming more and more abundant, from enterprise production lines to logistics, education, services, etc., robots can be seen. In order to promote the development of automation, the Japanese government has issued documents such as the "Fifth Science and Technology Basic Plan" and "Artificial Intelligence Strategy 2019" in recent years, hoping to use intelligence to improve people's living standards and strengthen the competitiveness of Japanese companies.

  During the epidemic prevention and control period, the European Commission specially launched the "European Joint Response to the New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemic Artificial Intelligence and Automation Initiative", soliciting automated solutions to respond to the epidemic, and hopes that automation and artificial intelligence technologies can be invested in disease prevention and diagnosis immediately or in the short to medium term ,treatment. The European Commission believes that technologies such as artificial intelligence doctors, medical robots, automated warehouses, and driverless cars will change people's lives, and in the future the entire European Union will further accelerate the realization of industrial automation and digitization.

  In October of this year, the European Union announced the latest version of the "Digital Europe" project. The European Union will invest 600 million euros to train about 256,000 people in the digital industry within the EU, of which 160 new master's degrees will be established and 80,000 will be trained. Digital experts, and trained 150,000 digital talents for other industries through short-term training programs. In addition, the EU requires member states to integrate "digital transformation" into the entire process of economic recovery in order to expand new opportunities for digitalization.

  Industrial changes spawn new job opportunities 

  Edmund Phelps, a Nobel laureate in economics and director of the Center for Capitalism and Society at Columbia University, recently stated that artificial intelligence not only brings "addition" robots, but also "multiplication" robots that improve worker productivity. . Phelps also pointed out that it is necessary to fully consider the short-term and mid- to long-term consequences of intelligence, introduce relevant policies, and formulate relevant laws and procedures to regulate the use of robots.

  Economists believe that the large-scale application and promotion of digitalization and automation technology has brought new opportunities and challenges to employment in various countries. In the future, countries should increase education and training in response to new needs. This will not only avoid the situation where "machines replace people", but also create more high-quality jobs.

  Many people worry that new technologies will impact the labor market and cause unemployment. Some analysts believe that in the next 5 to 10 years, 14% of work in OECD countries will be automated, and 32% of work will change the way of operation. In EU member states, 37% to 69% of jobs will be at least partially automated, and 25% of jobs will undergo huge changes due to the implementation of automation.

  However, the World Economic Forum report pointed out that digitization and automation will bring more new job opportunities. On the one hand, due to the use of new technologies such as automation, the demand for existing jobs is reduced, and low-skilled jobs such as simple repetitive work are most likely to be replaced by machines. It is estimated that in the next 5 years, 85 million jobs will be affected worldwide. But at the same time, due to the investment in new technology, 97 million related jobs will be created in the next five years, especially the demand for human-computer interaction, algorithms and other related jobs.

  A research report recently released by the Bruegel Institute, a European think tank, believes that no matter how advanced the automation and artificial intelligence technologies are, there is still an urgent shortage of high-quality talents. Not only management talents, but also a large number of data scientists, programmers, technical businesses Talents. The EU estimates that 96% of people can find similar or better jobs with adequate training. "Under the wave of future automation, one of the major challenges facing the labor market is that workers must adapt to the new job requirements and must increase training for this."