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Guangdong Lingdu Intelligent Technology Development, which sells its robots under the brand X-Human, signed a contract worth 12 million yuan (US$1.6 million) with its first US customer earlier this year. However, the customer suspended the deal after the US imposed additional tariffs, Lingdu chief operating officer Jackey Huang Jian said in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
Both parties are now “waiting for changes” in Trump’s tariff policies, Huang said.
Washington has imposed tariffs totalling 145 per cent on Chinese imports so far this year. Despite conflicting statements from China and the US regarding trade talks, Morgan Stanley economists expected both sides to negotiate to gradually reduce tariffs to 60 per cent by the end of the second quarter.
Nevertheless, Lingdu’s products are now available in more than 20 markets, including Europe and the Middle East. Its flagship Lingkong robot, now in its third generation, has climbed the walls of the 103-storey Guangzhou International Finance Centre, the 56-storey Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel in Dubai, and Hong Kong’s 35-storey Kowloon Commerce Centre.
The machine moves on surfaces or facades using suction cups and wheels, and it can handle curvatures in the surface of up to 5 millimetres. Its sewage filtration and recycling system allows it to work for half a day with just 8 litres of water, while a single battery lasts three hours. It operates while attached to a safety rope to prevent it from falling to the ground.
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The company said that one robot can clean up to 2,000 square metres of walls per day, three times the efficiency of human cleaners. The Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily reported in 2014 that cleaning the Zifeng Tower in Nanjing, capital of eastern Jiangsu province, with its 110,000-square-metre facade, took six people three months to complete.
