China is the strongest country in the maritime world, boasting six out of the ten busiest ports on Earth and close economic connections with the three of the remaining four – Singapore, Busan and Hong Kong.
It is also spending close to US$1 trillion on its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the biggest infrastructure project in history, that looks to connect ports and trade hubs from the Pacific to Northern Europe.
As part of its drive towards becoming a trade and commercial powerhouse, China has invested heavily, and continues to do, in automation technology in ports and terminals.
Richard Aguilar, a YouTuber who reports on major technological innovations in China, has published a video in which he explains how the country’s three biggest automated ports are utilising technologies such as 5G and AI to accelerate growth.
In it, Aguilar shows how the ports of Qingdao, Yangshan and Ningbo-Zhoushan are at the center of China’s economic growth and future ambitions.
Qingdao, for example, Asia’s first fully-automated port, holds the global operational efficiency record, with each crane handling more than 30 containers per hour, which means it can unload a cargo ship faster than any port in the world.
Being fully-automated, the port can keep working at night, which means it retains its volume throughput levels at all hours, thanks largely to what has become known as the ‘Super Brain’, its large computing system.
Video Credit: Richard Aguilar. See more from his YouTube channel here.
