Humanoid Robots Sort Packages and Serve Fast Food as China Showcases AI Integration at Beijing Expo

Robots sort packages and serve fast food at Beijing showcase

Beijing (AFP) - Robots sorting parcels and serving fried chicken enthralled visitors at a robotics expo in Beijing on Wednesday, where hundreds of companies set out their pitches for a future labour market transformed by artificial intelligence. The Chinese government has embraced robotics as a strategic industry, and local firms have ploughed resources into the development of embodied AI. The results of that investment were very much in evidence on the first day of the World Robot Conference, as thousands of Chinese and foreign visitors weaved through demonstrations of robots in houses, shops and factories. "Our greatest focus is on when robots will make their way into thousands of industries and thousands of homes," said Kang Yu, a Beijing-based investor attending the expo for a third straight year. "This requires them to possess a certain level of intelligence." At one booth, visitors pointed their phones at a humanoid wearing an apron as it gingerly reached for a toy chicken drumstick before clamping down and lifting the fake meat into a bucket. Nearby, dozens of guests craned their necks at a towering humanoid as the limbs on the five-metre (16-feet) model slowly manoeuvred up and down. "Is it a 'machine', or a 'human'?" posited a sign next to the enormous machine. "That is a distinction for the future." Hundreds of robotics startups, some just a couple years old, peppered the sprawling convention centre hoping to dazzle. "You can see the improvements every year," said Soumodip Sarkar, the executive president of a science park in Portugal who was visiting the expo on a tour of factories in China. "This is a space I see that China is already dominating and is going to dominate." Challenges ahead Particularly impressive were improvements in robotic hands, Sarkar said, wiggling his fingers. For instance, robots that last year could not pick up fruit now do so -- an important breakthrough as "we have a big need for agricultural applications", he said. While Chinese visitors made up an overwhelming majority of the attendees, there were more people from abroad than before, said investor Kang. Her company was one of the first to invest in Chinese robotics darling Unitree, whose share price soared over 600 percent on its debut in Shanghai on Wednesday. At the Unitree booth, a robot made a sandwich with two slices of bread and a single piece of lettuce, pinching the leaf to assemble it. Kang said the applications of embodied AI have become more obvious, pointing to robots making noodles or acting as emotional companions. But the industry is still "full of challenges", Kang said. For example, "when there's poor internet connection, response time will be very slow". Nearby, a table-tennis-playing humanoid the height of a 10-year-old child was wired to the internet as it returned a ball to its human opponent. Elsewhere, a staff member lunged towards a toddler-sized robot in a T-shirt that threatened to knock into a human child. - 'ChatGPT moment' There are geopolitical obstacles too. Washington has blacklisted Unitree and dozens of other Chinese tech firms it says are aiding the military. Some fears of illicit data transfers also exist in Europe, said Sarkar, the visitor from Portugal. But change is in the air, said Yang Qian, the COO of X Square Robot, which produces robots for use in homes and logistics. Many foreign customers, including from the United States, "often come to our company for research", she told AFP as robotic arms pushed packages along a conveyor belt in the booth behind her. "So I think everyone's view of China's overall technological ecology is changing." However, Yu Chao, founder and CEO of Lumos Robotics, said the humanoid industry has not yet had its "ChatGPT moment". "When ChatGPT came out, people were shocked. It's very disruptive, very revolutionary," he said. "I think in about three years, we can get there."

China robot makers show off latest humanoids as tech event draws surprise visit from Nvidia CEO's daughter

Chinese robot makers showed off humanoids sorting parcels, packing mobile phones and helping with household chores at a Beijing conference on Wednesday, seeking to demonstrate a shift from crowd-pleasing displays to broader commercial use. More than 300 mostly domestic companies are attending the World Robot Conference, which runs through Sunday, displaying over 2,000 exhibits and launching more than 150 products, according to organizers. The event comes amid a surge of investor interest in humanoids, a potential new source of industrial growth for China and an arena of technological competition with the United States. Shares in Unitree, China's best-known humanoid robot maker, soared nearly sixfold in their Shanghai trading debut on Wednesday, after Unitree's initial public offering was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors. Following Unitree's IPO, startup Lumos Robotics and the robotics division of China's largest auto exporter Chery Automobile told Reuters they were also considering stock market listings. Nvidia executive visits Madison Huang, a senior Nvidia executive and daughter of the US chipmaker's CEO Jensen Huang, made an unannounced visit to the event, watching robots perform flying kicks and dance routines before stopping at a companion-robot booth to ask about its sensors. Huang, who drew onlookers much as her father has on past visits to Beijing, oversees marketing for Nvidia's Omniverse and robotics platforms, software used to simulate and test physical AI -- systems that can perceive and act in the real world. Despite geopolitical tensions and US restrictions on exports of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China, her visit highlighted foreign suppliers' role in China's push to develop intelligent and autonomous robots for its factories, warehouses and homes. RealSense, a US-based maker of vision systems for robots and one of the few foreign exhibitors at the conference, said it was expanding manufacturing capacity and building sales partnerships in China as the sector develops. "We see China as a very strategic market for us," said Mike Nielsen, the company's chief marketing officer. "It is becoming the center of humanoid technology." Robotics an 'important force' At the opening ceremony, Xin Guobin, vice minister of industry and information technology, pledged support, saying robotics had become "an important force" in China's economic and social development, state-backed financial outlet Cailianshe reported. Robots are increasingly being tested in logistics, manufacturing and service settings, though many deployments remain at the pilot or early commercial stage. "Our most common application scenarios are in logistics," said Zhang Dapeng, assistant vice president at industrial humanoid robot firm Leju, as his company showed robots moving and sorting crates and small objects. Zhang said European factories and Chinese auto plants were using Leju robots to move boxes and load components. At Robotera's booth, a humanoid torso on a wheeled tripod base sorted parcels. A company official said the robot had been deployed at China Post logistics sites since last year using Robotera's AI software. A sales representative said Robotera had more than 100 parcel-sorting robots in 15 warehouses nationwide. From demonstrations to deployment Nearby, DexForce demonstrated humanoid robots packing mobile phones into boxes on an assembly line. The robots have been deployed since early this year at a Lens Technology factory, a Chinese supplier of touchscreens and other components to Apple and Huawei, said DexForce official Nicole Yang. Yang said the machines had millimeter-level operating accuracy and could detect and correct errors, such as a phone being placed at an angle. "In theory, human beings are the most dexterous," Yang said. "But many workers in factories are unwilling to do this kind of boring work." Lumos Robotics is already using robots to automate the assembly of key modules at its factory and plans to introduce them into final assembly, founder and Chief Executive Yu Chao said. "This year, everyone is more focused on how robots can work in real-world scenarios," he said. X Square Robot, known for its focus on household chores, is looking to move beyond short home-service trials. Its longest deployment has lasted one month, and it is testing robots in hundreds of homes this year before gradual commercialisation next year, said co-founder and Chief Executive Yang Qian. Commercial test Global humanoid shipments rose 272% in the first half of 2026 to about 19,000 units, with Chinese companies accounting for 97% of the total, according to Morgan Stanley, citing Smart Analytics Global data. But about 65% of shipments still went to entertainment, education, research and data collection rather than productive commercial work, Morgan Stanley said. RealSense's Nielsen said the companies most likely to succeed would be those able to put robots into active production environments, adding that China's rapid development cycle was pushing suppliers to move more quickly. "The product cycles for robots are more like six to eight months, not three to four years," he said.