SHANGHAI, Jan. 4 -- The scale of Shanghai's intelligent manufacturing equipment sector has surpassed 100 billion yuan (around 14.09 billion U.S. dollars), with plans to build 70 smart factories in 2024, according to a local conference on Wednesday.

Established smart factories in Shanghai have seen an average 50-percent surge in production efficiency and a 30-percent reduction in operating costs, resulting in an accumulated 13.8-percent decrease in unit energy consumption, according to the conference on building smart factories.

The metropolis has pledged to cultivate 10 companies in the field of robotics, aiming to achieve a total market size of 100 billion yuan in robot-related industries by 2025, according to an action plan.

China has built over 10,000 digital workshops and smart factories, and has become the world's largest intelligent manufacturing application market, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.