What Will Manufacturing Industry Return To The US Market And What It Means For China?

China's real estate and infrastructure bubble is very worrying, but these are only short-term challenges. China should be able to get out of these difficulties. For China's economy, the real threat is bigger and longer. manufacturing industry Bubbles.

China has been able to attract American companies through subsidies, cheap labor and loose supervision measures. manufacturing industry Move to this market. Millions of American jobs have been relocated to China. Made in China Has become a pillar of China's economic growth and prosperity. However, rising labor costs, concerns about IP theft and delays in production time have prompted Dow Chemical, Caterpillar, general electric and Ford motors to start transferring some of their manufacturing operations from China to the US market. Google also recently announced that its Nexus Q streaming player will be made in the United States, which will also put pressure on apple to promote its imitation.

The rising labor cost and political pressure are not the main factors to change the balance. The real destruction will come from a series of technologies that are evolving and aggregating at exponential speed. These technologies include robotics, artificial intelligence (BI), 3D printing and nanotechnology.

Compared with the next generation of robots, China's manufacturing and assembling business is like a child's home. Soon, robots will become cheaper than manpower.

Then artificial intelligence, that is, software that allows computers to do jobs originally done by humans. AI is enabling the development of the latest technologies such as the development of automatic driving cars, apple Siri and other speech recognition systems, as well as the face recognition technology software recently acquired by Facebook. In addition, AI technology is also entering the field of manufacturing, which will allow us to design our products at home with the support of AI.

How can we turn these designs into products? We can print these designs in our own homes. A manufacturing method called "stacking up" makes it possible to print products. In traditional manufacturing operations, parts are produced by people who use electrical driven mechanical tools. The tools they use include electric saws, lathes, milling machines and drills. They can physically cut materials to get the desired shape. This is a heavy procedure.

In the "buildup", the component is based on the 3D model to melt the continuous layer of the material - that is, to add material rather than cut down the material. The "3D printer" that can produce these products uses power metal, plastic water droplets and other materials. These materials are largely similar to the laser printer's cartridges. This "3D printer" allows people to create objects without using any type of tools or fixtures, and this process does not generate any waste, nor does it bring additional costs due to the complexity of the process.

"3D printer" has been able to create mechanical equipment, medical implants, jewelry and even clothing And other products, the cheapest "3D printer" can print out the basic objects, and the price is between $500 and $1000. In the near future, we will be able to buy "3D printers" that can "print" toys and household products at this price.

In the next ten years, we will see more technological progress. Today engineers and scientists are developing new materials, such as carbon nanotubes, ceramic matrix nanocomposites, and new carbonized fibers. These new materials make it possible to produce products that are stronger, lighter, more energy efficient and more durable than existing ones.

A new field -- molecular manufacturing will further make cheap molecular manufacturing possible, with atomic level accuracy. By that time, the materials and production technologies we use to produce will have no resemblance to the assembly based production processes in China and the United States.

Therefore, in the next ten years, China has many reasons to be worried because manufacturing will no doubt return. American market 。