liu qiangdong attended the opening ceremony of the 2025 world internet conference wuzhen summit
in the coming “unmanned era,” people may only need to work one hour a week, and governments should impose a 90% tax on tech monopolies, said jd.com founder and chairman richard liu, who also goes by the chinese name liu qiangdong, at the 2025 world internet conference in wuzhen, zhejiang province on friday.
liu, one of only two business representatives speaking at the opening ceremony and appearing ahead of alibaba group ceo eddie wu, used the occasion to outline jd.com’s next strategic focus — what he called a “new wave of logistics” led by unmanned delivery technologies.
“unmanned delivery is the future of socialized logistics,” liu said, announcing that jd.com plans to establish the world’s first fully unmanned delivery station in april 2026. the site will integrate drones for cargo transport, autonomous vehicles for delivery, and household robots capable of placing packages directly inside homes using authorized smart locks.
liu argued that automation would cut logistics costs and unleash a “positive cycle” of higher employee pay, stronger consumer confidence, and a more balanced economic structure. he also suggested that future workers might only need to work “one day a week or even one hour,” and proposed taxing monopolistic technology firms more heavily to promote social fairness.
the remarks mark a strong comeback for one of china’s most prominent internet entrepreneurs, who had kept a low profile following a 2018 incident that led him to step away from public appearances. in recent months, however, liu has reemerged on the international business stage — attending the world economic forum’s summer davos in june, the china-eu entrepreneurs dialogue in july, and the apec summit in south korea in late october alongside his wife, zhang zetian.
since liu’s return to take jd.com’s helm, the company has accelerated its diversification beyond e-commerce. this year, jd.com launched an on-demand delivery service to compete with alibaba and meituan, and announced plans to expand into the travel and hospitality sectors.
the company has also made major investments in robotics and embodied-intelligence technologies through subsidiaries and venture arms, backing firms such as agibot, spirit ai, engineai, and limx dynamics. jd.com’s hong kong-based subsidiary, jd coinlink technology, has joined the hong kong monetary authority’s stablecoin issuer sandbox program.
still, liu’s vision of a fully unmanned logistics network faces significant hurdles — from mass production of high-density solid-state batteries to regulatory standards for autonomous trucks, the reliability of delivery robots in community settings, and privacy concerns around smart-home integration.
the full transcript of liu’s speech is as follows, edited for clarity and brevity.
back in 2007, i came across a set of data. i saw that in 2006, china’s social logistics costs accounted for 18.9% of total national gdp, if i remember correctly. later, i reviewed a lot more data and realized that as china’s economy developed, if our social logistics costs weren’t so high, it would actually have played a huge role in driving economic growth. that’s why we decided to invest in logistics and enter the logistics industry, and have been doing it for 18 years now.
some people say that china’s express delivery is very fast and cheap, just two yuan to ship a parcel. but in fact, express delivery is only a small fraction of the logistics industry, it doesn’t represent the entirety of china’s logistics sector.
the main reason our country’s logistics costs are so high is the disorganized flow of goods and the excessive number of handling steps. in 2007, an average item in china would be handled at least 7.2 times from the moment it left the factory until it reached the consumer. last year, our logistics costs were 14.1%, and a typical item was handled about five times.
in 2006, social logistics costs in western countries accounted for 6% to 8% of gdp. japan performed the best, reaching as low as just over 5%.
some might say that high logistics costs don’t seem to cause obvious problems. but in fact, excessively high social logistics costs lead to waste of national resources, environmental impact, and a large portion of companies’ profits being eaten up by inefficient logistics.
think about it: if we could reduce china’s social logistics costs to just 6% of gdp, that would mean, according to last year’s figures, that companies nationwide could gain trillions of yuan in net profit per year. growth in net profits would drive further technological advancement and allow employees to earn better wages and benefits. with higher incomes, consumer confidence would be boosted, and the entire economy could get back on track. that’s why social logistics costs are critically important to the nation’s economy.
i firmly believe that with the advent of the era of artificial intelligence and robotics, the proportion of socialized logistics costs to gdp in china should drop below 10% within the next five years. the progress we’ll make in the coming five years could even surpass that of the past decade, or even the past fifteen years.
as you all know, jd logistics was the first to propose unmanned warehouses a decade ago. after ten years of foundational development, today we have already deployed a substantial number of unmanned logistics devices on a significant scale. among these, drones and robots are crucial components, but the main bottleneck remains battery technology. once we achieve mass production of solid-state and high-density solid-state batteries, the robotics industry will experience a boom in rapid growth.
today’s theme at the world internet conference is digitalization. let me offer you a glimpse, using jd logistics as an example, of what logistics will look like in the digital era.
first, from a technological standpoint, our warehouses could actually have already achieved 100% digitalization long ago, it’s just that the costs are still higher than using human labor. currently, we’re collaborating with many cities across china to break down and deploy automated equipment, and we look forward to rapidly lowering the cost of automation, especially through large-scale production and the innovative ways electricity is being generated in china.
jd’s unmanned trucks have already surpassed several hundred thousand kilometers in internal testing. we also have unmanned cargo trucks and fully autonomous last-mile delivery vehicles. technologically, these solutions are highly advanced, they’re only waiting for policy and regulatory approval. at present, we can only test them in designated zones approved by the government. what we need is to be able to operate across all types of road conditions nationwide, especially for long-distance haulage.
by next april, we will launch the world’s first fully unmanned distribution station, where robots will handle all the loading of goods, every step of the process will be done by robots.
what about inside residential communities? we are collaborating on multiple projects with robotics companies for this as well. our vision is for the final 50 meters, from the entrance of the community to your doorstep, to be handled by community robots, which will take parcels from the unmanned delivery vehicle at the community gate.
currently, 50% of the door locks in china are smart locks, and in about five years, that number is expected to exceed 90%. this means that, with your authorization, robots could securely unlock your front door and place your package inside your home. imagine that, the entire process, almost completely unmanned.
this is the future, this is the digital era. i believe many of you are probably wondering right now, “what about jobs?” honestly, just a few days ago, when we were developing various automated devices internally, we also felt conflicted and even a bit anxious, uncertain about how we might face unemployment one day. but now, we feel much more at ease, the solution seems simple. as long as our government legislates, for example, setting the workweek to just one day, or even just one hour a week, these problems can be easily resolved. (laughter and applause at the scene)
secondly, a huge number of new services will emerge that require humanistic qualities, such as art, tourism, and exploration of the world. right now, humanity understands less than 1% of our universe, which means there’s still 99% that we know nothing about.
take tourism, for example. i believe that within just over five years, the global tourism market could grow tenfold. this is where our technological advantages come into play. the hospitality and tourism sector will also see considerable growth. in the future, most of us, most of the time, will be exploring, creating art, or traveling. this will unlock many opportunities and generate plenty of new jobs.
thirdly, governments can address these issues by taxing tech companies. in fact, looking back at over a hundred years of technological development, especially since the first industrial revolution, technology has always led to increased wealth. for example, there’s nvidia reaching a $5 trillion valuation, apple, facebook, google, and microsoft. almost all companies with over $1 trillion in market value owe their dominance to technology monopolies.
so, what should governments do? that’s also straightforward, all super-profitable companies, all technology monopolies, should pay 90% of their profits in taxes to the state, which can then be used to support the unemployed, the elderly, education, and provide various public goods. so, what i want to say is, no matter how technology progresses in our society, there is no need to worry about jobs or fairness. there’s plenty we can do, and the future will inevitably be brighter. thank you, everyone.
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