In an unmanned bank in Shanghai, intelligent robots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are acting like reception managers to answer clients’ questions and help them handle businesses.

This is the epitome of the rapid development of China’s unmanned economy. According to query platform Tianyancha.com, China is home to over 73,000 enterprises involved in unmanned economy. Among them, 33 percent are wholesale and retail companies, 28.8 percent are research and tech service companies, and 3.6 percent are manufacturing companies.

A woman buys products at an unmanned supermarket in Fengtai district, Beijing. (Photo/Xinhua)

New technologies represented by 5G, AI, the industrial internet and the Internet of Things have given a strong boost to the development of unmanned economy, making economic activities and living smarter.

In Nanjing, capital city of east China’s Jiangsu province, robots are sorting packages at an unmanned warehouse of Cainiao Network, the logistics arm of Alibaba Group.

At a port in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, 25 domestically-developed self-driving electric trucks have ran for more than 30,000 hours and accomplished more than 8,000 container transportation tasks after they were put into use.

In Zhangjiakou, north China’s Hebei province, villagers have lifted the annual yield of raspberries to 3,000 kg per mu (667 square meters) with the help of AI technology, no longer having to be at the mercy of the weather.

Unmanned economy enjoys broad development prospects as it meets consumers’ individual needs, improves efficiency and reduces costs, said Pan Helin, executive dean of the Digital Economic Research Institute of Zhongnan University of Economics and Law.

For example, unmanned shelves, similar to vending machines, have been put into use in office buildings in many cities. Consumers can use their smartphones to scan a QR code on a shelf to pay for goods.

During China’s fight against the COVID-19 epidemic, new contactless services, such as unmanned retailing and delivery, have played their role. JD Logistics, the logistics arm of Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com, adopted unmanned vehicles to deliver goods to medical workers in Wuhan, capital city of central China’s Hubei province and the former epicenter of the epidemic.

Similar robots were used to deliver medicine, food and recycled medical waste in isolation areas at hospitals in the city, effectively curbing the spread of the virus.