CREG (China Railway Engineering Equipment Group Co. Ltd. - one of the Chinese TBM manufacturers) has organized a seminer called “TBM Tunneling Parameter Data Sharing and Machine Learning: Parallel Analysis Seminar.”
There are also other sponsors and participants. Pretty interesting in that it was contributed by such a wide range of participants. Almost like a cluster event.
Have a look:
https://tunnelingonline.com/creg-tbm-intelligent-tunneling-lotus-pond-initiative/
The news article says "e “Lotus Pond Initiative,” calling for addressing TBM industry data standardization and sharing challenges, promoting the promoting the application of big data and artificial intelligence in the industry".
This is amazing. Like development of self-driving cars, trucks, maybe the Chinese are now working to develop a self-boring TBMs.
cover tunnel photo by: Matt Brown from London, England / CC BY
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This is exactly what I am talking about. China is coming and it is coming in a big way.
Can you see the sheer extend of government involvement and support in China's TBM industry? We are not talking here about a company R&D department cooperating with some nearby university.
The question is what are we going to do against the upcoming Chinese tsunami in Europe (on TBM industry)? Other than burying our heads into the sand or, at best, complaining?