"Dark factories" in China could shift modern manufacturing

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]President Trump is back at the White House following his summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Now, while traveling back to the US, President Trump said Boeing reached a deal to sell at least 200 planes to China. It's a breakthrough for the aircraft company, which has been at the center of the president's efforts to reinvigorate American manufacturing.

[00:00:18]Before the summit, CBS's Anna Coren got access to a Chinese factory, which offers a very different picture of what manufacturing could look like.

[00:00:28]Inside a cavernous industrial building on the outskirts of Zhuhai, Southern China, sits a factory of the future.

[00:00:35]Hundreds of yellow robotic arms move in sync along an assembly line, putting together thousands of components to build an air conditioning unit every 10 seconds. Owned by Gree, China's largest producer of air conditioners, this is what's known as a dark factory, operating 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, controlled by AI.

[00:00:58]A factory of this size normally employs around 10,000 people. This one has only a thousand, of which roughly a third are engineers. This is where machines are replacing humans.

[00:01:12]This is the nerve center of the operation. Giant screens showing instant data of warehouse production, global sales, and delivery.

[00:01:21]Is this the future for manufacturing?

[00:01:24]Yes, he tells us.

[00:01:27]This is what future intelligence factories will look like with AI-supported robots everywhere.

[00:01:33]60% of production is exported overseas.

[00:01:36]These units will be heading to North America.

[00:01:39]In fact, Gree has been advertising in Times Square.

[00:01:43]China already accounts for roughly 30% of global manufacturing output. That's expected to rise to almost 50% in the next 4 years. And you don't see many workers.

[00:01:57]There's not that many people here.

[00:02:00]Uh I think in the future physical work will get less and less, he tells me. But the skills and workers to maintain AI equipment will grow.

[00:02:09]President Trump has just returned from a high-stakes summit in Beijing where he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

[00:02:15]Trump said China would be making investments in the US as part of his plan to help reindustrialize America.

[00:02:23]But if the president is hoping to bring blue-collar jobs back to the US, that ship may have well and truly sailed. For CBS Saturday Morning, I'm Anna Coren, Zhuhai, China.