Automation has replaced the jobs of up to 40 per cent of workers in some Chinese industrial companies over the past three years, highlighting the effects of Beijing’s push to upgrade its technological base and become a world superpower in artificial intelligence.

Several companies in China’s export-manufacturing provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Guangdong have cut 30-40 per cent of their workforce as a result of automation in that three-year period, according to a report by the China Development Research Foundation, a government think-tank, and venture capital fund Sequoia China. 

Beijing is pursuing an ambitious policy to upgrade manufacturing technologies. State media coverage of the government’s development goals, including in the field of artificial intelligence, have concentrated on the positives. However, authorities have quietly raised concerns about the lay-offs caused by such policies.