A worker puts finishing touches to an iPal social robot, designed by AvatarMind, at an assembly plant in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province, in this file photo. Designed to offer education, care and companionship to children and the elderly, the humanoid robots come in two genders. The market value of China’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry reached 23.7 billion yuan (US$3.5 billion) in 2017, with the growth rate expected to reach 75 percent in 2018, according to a latest report.SD-Agencies