The scheme spans manufacturing and healthcare to disaster relief and requires local governments and SOEs to test and deploy the technology this year.

While there's a viable commercial path forward in industry and logistics, experts say demand for humanoids lags building capacity.

A new national initiative directs local governments and state-owned firms to test robots across manufacturing, logistics, retail, health care and emergency response.

Chinese tech insiders cash out after AI stock rally, Pentagon adds Alibaba, Baidu, BYD and Nio to Chinese military-linked list

The scheme spans manufacturing and healthcare to disaster relief and requires local governments and SOEs to test and deploy the technology this year.

A robot doing backflips is impressive. A robot finding your socks, folding them, and putting them away is much harder.