The Big Picture examines the rapid evolution of robotics and artificial intelligence, marking the onset of a “fourth industrial revolution,” particularly in Hangzhou and Shanghai, China.

A future with drones instead of fireworks, flying taxis, and humanoid robots aiding in daily tasks. Unitree Robotics, quickly developing its first model, aims to have humanoid robots in homes by 2030, and the company believes its robots could join the workforce and assist in homes within five years.

For five years, The Big Picture has covered Australia-China business from the places everyone knows: Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hong Kong. This year we went somewhere else. An hour from Beijing lies a province of 75 million people the outside world has never heard of. It's shaped like a doughnut, and the hole in the middle is Beijing. For centuries the capital took the glory while Hebei did the work. Now Hebei is opening up, and we got the first invitation.

There's no guidebook, so we made one. Every city here has a speciality, and every speciality is world-scale: enough handbags a year to circle the equator eight times; more steel than America and Australia combined, now going green; a new city run by AI and Shakespeare-quoting robots.

But the real story is people, and the long game. We meet entrepreneurs like Bob, who arrived in 1999 with one friend and no Mandarin, and made a fortune. The question isn't can you do business in Hebei. It's why aren't you there already?

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