(Yicai) June 23 -- Chinese robotics developers have begun competing and hiring more and more young talents as interns, mainly using top university students to help with research and development work.

The ratio of interns to full-time workers at some robotics firms in China has reached 1:1, several executives, headhunters, and job seekers told Yicai.

One robotics firm set up its office along Beijing subway line four, where many top universities are gathered, to facilitate students to join for an internship, its founder said to Yicai. "We need to maintain close contact with these talents who may become China's best in the future."

An executive from another robotics firm in Beijing told Yicai that the company has around 50 full-time employees and a team of 50 interns still in college, mostly from Tsinghua University and Peking University. The interns support frequent algorithm R&D iterations and engineering tests, the person pointed out.

In addition, hiring university students as interns can be a way for companies to build a more cost-effective supplementary workforce. Based on a job listing by Lingchu Intelligence, interns' monthly income ranges from CNY5,000 to CNY8,000 (USD695 to USD1,115), while that of full-time algorithm engineers is CNY20,000 to CNY50,000 (USD2,782 to USD6,955).

Most robotics companies prefer hiring interns with computer and mechanical engineering backgrounds while emphasizing that candidates must have cross-disciplinary working capabilities, Yicai found.

Internships at robotics firms provide opportunities for university students to enhance their comprehensive engineering and technical capabilities, Li Qingdu, executive dean of the Institute of Machine Intelligence at the University of Shanghai for Science and Technology and founder of Joydrive Robotics, said to Yicai.

High-quality robotics R&D relies on real operation and testing environments, Li noted. "However, due to factors such as funding and venue limitations, many universities find it difficult to build a complete practical platform for students."

Students' knowledge and skills learned at school mostly stay at the simulation level, making it difficult to effectively transform theoretical knowledge into practical operational capabilities, Li pointed out. "It is necessary to achieve this goal through internships."

School-company ties need to be deepened, Li said. "Enterprises and schools can promote the integration of teaching content with industrial needs by co-building internship bases, carrying out joint project R&D, and implementing order-based talent training, which is also an important means to enhance the employment competitiveness of students."

The number of job openings in China's robotics sector rose 6 percent in the five months ended May 31 from a year earlier, while the number of applicants jumped 32 percent, according to a report released by Zhilian Recruitment on June 16. The most in‑demand role, that of humanoid robot engineer, saw a 409 percent surge in listings and a 396 percent jump in applicants.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev