A visitor interacts with a humanoid robot during the Digital Economy Industry Expo in Beijing on Thursday. CHEN XIAOGEN/FOR CHINA DAILY
China's embodied artificial intelligence industry registered robust growth and showcased multiple positive trends in the first five months of this year, according to the latest data from the State Taxation Administration.
The surge aligns with the country's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30), which designates embodied AI as one of six major future industries alongside quantum technology and biomanufacturing. Defined as "intelligent agents with physical carriers", embodied AI enables a crucial leap for the smart tech from merely "knowing" to "doing". As technologies like large AI models and motion control mature, embodied AI has emerged as a core track in global frontier technology competition, accelerating the sector's overall development.
Chinese enterprises are actively innovating in this arena. Guo Yandong, founder and CEO of AI2 Robotics, said that while many rely on humans wearing VR headsets to operate robots for data collection, his team focuses on designing model structures that closely mimic the human brain. "Compared to conventional models, these brain-inspired designs require less training data and offer higher learning efficiency for robots," Guo said, adding that such technical solutions have already been implemented and verified.
