Construction Goes Smart as Robots Take Lead

With the wide adoption of BIM (building information modeling) technology, prefabricated construction and robotics, China's construction sector is increasingly defined by standardization, industrialization, intelligence and green development.
At the Chongqing International Expo Center in southwest China, the transformation is on display. A plastering robot scans wall surfaces with high-precision cameras, controlling errors within 0.3 millimeters while completing three square meters of work per minute — four times faster than manual labor.
Nearby, welding robots have replaced workers in high-temperature, high-risk crouching tasks, enabling a single operator to oversee multiple machines and achieve more efficient human-machine collaboration.
These scenes were part of the third National Construction Robot Competition and Smart Construction & Building Robotics Exhibition recently held in Chongqing. A total of 109 organizations from more than 20 provincial-level regions presented 146 innovative achievements, demonstrating how smart construction is moving from isolated technological breakthroughs to full-scenario deployment.