The World Robot Conference kicked off today in Beijing's National Convention Center, where the overriding theme was last year's call by Chinese President Xi Jinping for an  "industrial robot revolution."

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"Countries should open up markets and share robotic technology for mutual benefit," said Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao at the opening ceremony of the Conference 2015, which is being jointly run by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST) and the Ministry of Science and Technology (MIIT), and goes through November 25.

"China, with a more open gesture, would like to welcome robot experts and entrepreneurs across the world to share knowledge and cooperate with us."

The robotics market in China is relatively small, but is growing. Some 57,000 industrial robots were sold in China in 2014, according to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), which marked a 55% rise from the previous year, and 

accounted for 25% of global sales.  By 2018, China will account for more than one-third of the industrial robots installed worldwide, according to the IFR.

Despite the growth, Li said that China has a ratio of only 36 robots for every 10,000 workers, well behind that of other major industrialized nations such as the U.S. with 164 robots per 10,000 workers, Germany with 292 robots per 10,000, Japan with 315, and Korea, which leads the world with 478 robots per 10,000 workers.

The Conference is focusing on the theme of "innovative development of intelligent society," and will conduct high level academic discussions and display the latest achievements in robotics.

Experts will discuss the innovative development trends of robotics, define robotics' development path, and explore the influential impact of robot revolution on future social development.

Exhibition subjects include "Industrial Robot Products and Business Solutions," "Industrial Robot Development Platform and Software Technology," "Household Cleaning Robots," "Entertaining Robots," and "Educational Robots," among others.

Forums include "The New Era of Robots Brought by Artificial Intelligence," "Robotics Innovation & Group Standard," and "Finance Boosts Robotic Industry Development."

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