Robots fast replacing chefs, labourers in China

Beijing (PTI): Heralding a new era of machines, robots are increasingly becoming popular in China replacing humans in most of the hard labour jobs, including chefs in restaurants. Hundreds of small Chinese restaurants are using the robots which donned the role of traditional cooks dishing out a set menu at a faster and cheaper rate replacing the chefs. Robots in chef uniform working with a firm dough, shooting noodles into boiling water in see through kitchens is becoming a common site in many restaurants in Beijing and elsewhere. "It's cost-effective," said a roadside restaurateur Zhao. "A cook doing this job usually asks for 40,000 yuan (USD 6,400) a year. I bought the robot last month for 10,000 yuan (USD 1,600). It does a good job," he told Xinhua news agency. Inventor of the robot Cui Runquan, a 38-year-old farmer from neighboring Hebei Province, said he has sold robots like this to more than 3,000 restaurants across China since launching the mechanical avatar in 2010. He obtained his fist patent in 2010, for a mechanical arm, and now has four patents for his invention. As wages grow by 10 to 20 per cent annually in China, the age of the machines is dawning. From small restaurants to big factories, the advent of relatively cheap robots is beginning to change the country's economic landscape. Industrial robots, with more sophisticated designs than the robot chefs are entering Chinese factories to take on jobs like welding, painting, ironing and packaging.