China’s ‘dark factories’: what Europe is missing: Europe is sleeping through the age of dark factories

 

 

“A land of cheap electricity, not a land of low wages: China’s fully automated factories are rewriting the rules of global industry for cheap green energy. Europe risks missing out on this transformation.

 

Europe is busy debating tariffs, emissions targets and its industrial strategy. Meanwhile, largely out of Europe’s sights, a much more disruptive transformation is taking place: the ‘dark factories’. In China, the term is synonymous with the future of manufacturing. In Brussels and Berlin, it almost never appears. Such ignorance is dangerous.

 

‘Dark factories’ are highly automated manufacturing plants that operate almost entirely without human presence. Robots assemble, sensors monitor, artificial intelligence systems correct errors and digital twins coordinate production in real time. Because they require no lighting, no heating, and no shift changes, they operate 24/7, are extremely cost-effective, and maintain quality standards that are virtually impossible for human-run factories to achieve. This is not a pilot project or futuristic prototype. “Dark factories” are already in use.

 

Green electricity is the basis of the boom in industrial robots.

 

Automation alone does not explain China’s advantage. The decisive factor is the transformation of the energy sector. While Europe struggles to reconcile its industrial production with decarbonization, China is creating what the British newspaper Financial Times has called the world’s first “electric state.” The country has launched 42 ultra-high-voltage transmission lines, about 80 percent of the world’s capacity. They allow renewable energy produced in the west of the country to be transmitted to industrial centers in the east with virtually no losses. In the first half of 2025 alone, China added 290 gigawatts of new power capacity, of which almost 90 percent is renewable. This expansion exceeds Germany’s entire installed renewable energy capacity in just six months.

 

This is important because the economic viability of “dark factories” depends on an abundant supply of cheap, clean electricity. When full automation of production is combined with low energy costs, the cost structure changes dramatically. Industrial electricity costs around 8-8.5 cents per kilowatt-hour in China and the US. In Germany, it is almost 18 cents – unless economically dubious support mechanisms are put in place, such as those planned for the steel sector. For Europe, the price on the energy market is robbing the country of its future.

 

In the future, production will move to where energy is cheapest.

 

If European policymakers misunderstand what “dark factories” mean, they also misjudge the direction of global supply chains. For decades, Europe believed it could develop high-tech products and outsource labor-intensive production to low-wage countries. Dark factories disrupt this logic. When labor costs become negligible, production moves not to where labor is cheapest, but to where energy is affordable, regulation is reliable, and supply chains are integrated. This is not Europe at the moment.

 

China’s Greater Bay Area – around Shenzhen and Guangzhou – has created a dense, seamless industrial ecosystem that connects suppliers, logistics, and research. The United States is also moving in the same direction, with the CHIPS Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and major investments in advanced manufacturing. Europe, on the other hand, is lagging behind due to regulatory delays, fragmented energy policies, and risk-averse political reflexes.

 

Europe does have its strengths, however. Its domestic market remains one of the largest and richest in the world. Instead of trying to copy China’s megaclusters, Europe could build regional, highly automated factories close to consumers. Such “market-oriented” manufacturing would shorten lead times, reduce vulnerability to geopolitical shocks, and create flexibility that Asian megaregions struggle to replicate. But it requires political will and much faster decision-making.

 

Europe can define standards

 

Europe is also ignoring another important battleground: standards. Dark factories rely on common digital protocols—for sensors, data, artificial intelligence, security standards, and cybersecurity. Whoever sets these standards will shape global manufacturing. China is actively seeking partners to help shape smart manufacturing systems. Europe’s excessive self-reliance leaves the continent vulnerable to dependence on external digital infrastructure.

 

The consequences are also reaching developing countries. Countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh, which chose cheap manufacturing as their path to development, are now facing automation that is outpacing even the cheapest human labor. Some middle-income countries like Vietnam are trying to adapt quickly. Others may be are completely excluded from global production.

 

Here, Europe can play a constructive role by supporting smaller, flexible automated units that serve local markets, for example in agricultural processing, medical technology or electronics repair, and by helping countries build local ecosystems for data, software and maintenance. This would be a forward-looking development strategy. Europe still has world-class engineering expertise, and several companies such as Siemens, Bosch and Trumpf are already building state-of-the-art automated factories. But if policymakers do not act more quickly, Europe risks watching a new industrial paradigm take shape in other parts of the world.

 

The author, Thomas Bonschab, is founder and CEO of TiNC International GmbH, a company that focuses on initiating business partnerships between China and Germany. He also publishes regularly on the changing global balance of power and its impact on German and European competitiveness.”

 

Lithuania does not even think about cheap energy and dark factories. We will be left not only without transit, but also without exports. Those who can speculate on apartments and land, eat. Others go to the trash cans to look for their waste.