Western CEOs ‘Terrified’ After Touring Fully Automated Chinese Factories

‘Most Humbling Thing I’ve Ever Seen’: Western CEOs Sound Alarm Over China's Tech-Fueled Manufacturing Power

Top Western business leaders, including Ford CEO Jim Farley, are voicing deep concerns after touring China’s cutting-edge manufacturing facilities, warning that the technological dominance emerging from the Asian superpower could dramatically outpace and potentially dismantle Western industries. In a report by The Telegraph, Farley described his visit to Chinese factories as “the most humbling thing I’ve ever seen,” expressing fear that American automakers like Ford may not survive unless they act swiftly to catch up.

Farley was particularly stunned by the cost-efficiency and quality of Chinese-made vehicles, many of which now feature self-driving capabilities and facial recognition systems. “Their cost and the quality of their vehicles is far superior to what I see in the West,” he stated, underscoring the urgency for innovation in U.S. manufacturing.

The anxiety isn't limited to the auto industry. Greg Jackson, CEO of British energy firm Octopus, recounted his visit to a fully automated “dark factory” producing mobile phones with virtually no human involvement. “The process was so heavily automated that there were no workers on the manufacturing side, just a few overseeing the machines,” Jackson said. He emphasized that China’s competitiveness has shifted from low wages and subsidies to an explosion of highly skilled engineers driving relentless innovation.

Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest, who had once planned to manufacture EV powertrains, admitted he abandoned those plans after witnessing China's near-total automation. “We are in a global competition with China, and it’s not just EVs,” Forrest warned. “If we lose this, we do not have a future at Ford.”

Forrest described Chinese factories where robots rise from the floor, autonomously assembling entire trucks along lengthy production lines. “After about 800, 900 metres, a truck drives out. There are no people everything is robotic,” he said.

The comments reveal a growing sense of alarm among Western industrialists who see China's leap into AI-driven, hyper-efficient, and low-labor manufacturing as a threat that could fundamentally shift the global economic balance. The takeaway: unless the West drastically ramps up investment in innovation and automation, it may be left in the technological dust.