Dancing, playing football, running a half marathon... humanoid robots rocked the Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting

"Metals have no emotions, but they can refract light." This line from the robot show at the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting was played at the end of the rehearsal highlights. Leng Xiaokun, founder of Leju Tongyan (Beijing) Robotics Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Leju Robotics"), liked this line and posted it in the comment section of WeChat Moments that day, with a picture of Leju's "Kuafu" robot performing under the spotlight, and the lyrics on the screen were frozen at "Together towards the future."

Humanoid robots were everywhere at the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting, with nearly 100 robots from 15 companies active in every corner. The welcoming robot "Nia" communicated with the audience through emotion recognition algorithms, and T1 from Beijing Accelerated Evolution Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Accelerated Evolution") was not only a dancer at the opening ceremony, but also a football player in the permanent exhibition.

Goldman Sachs predicts that the global humanoid robot market will be worth approximately US$38 billion by 2035. This century-old dream that began with Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts is undergoing a qualitative change from a laboratory wonder to a mass production revolution under the joint catalysis of large models, supply chains, and capital.

From quantitative change to qualitative change

Starting from the first humanoid robot Wabot-1 in 1973, the development history of humanoid robots is a process from similar in appearance to similar in spirit. Fast forward to 2010, 2010-2020 is the dynamic control period for achieving difficult movements, and 2020-2025 is the AI empowerment period. On the basis of similar appearance, humanoid robots are becoming more and more like humans due to progress in cognition and other aspects. In 2025, the popularity of humanoid robots is getting higher and higher.

At the 2025 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting, the manufacturers participating in the robot show prepared for three weeks for the three-minute show. "The director team invited a dance teacher for us. After the teacher finished the movements, we used motion capture to 'feed' the data to the 'Kuafu' robot, and taught it to dance in this way," Ke Zhendong, vice president of Leju Robotics, told Beijing Business Daily.

At the performance, the four "Kuafu" robots and the T1 in the back row were very powerful, waving, doing push-ups, Tai Chi... and showing off their best skills.

"The center of gravity must be very accurate. The team kept adjusting the movement trajectory, training methods, and parameters. The last week was intensive rehearsal, allowing the robot to try continuously," revealed Ke Zhendong.

If we look at the entire humanoid robot industry and extend the time dimension, this kind of quantitative change to qualitative change is very common.

When communicating with a reporter from Beijing Business Daily, Cheng Hao, founder and chairman of Accelerated Evolution, gave an example, "At the beginning of 2024, all humanoid robots in the world will fall after walking for a while. By the end of the year, T1 will be able to survive intense confrontations and collisions such as playing football without falling. Even if it falls, it will be able to get up on its own within 1-2 seconds, which was not possible before."

Various cool show skills videos are more intuitive.

"'Life' lies in movement! The world's first carp flip: the freshly-released real shot of Yushu Technology's G1! The evolution of humanoid intelligence is changing with each passing day", the latest content on Yushu Technology's official social account is titled with this. A few days ago, Yushu Technology released a video of G1 completing a side flip.

The official account of Accelerated Evolution showed off its "dancing skills", "Dance trained by Accelerated T1 equipped with bridge-mediated objects", and an introduction to Accelerated Evolution. In the video, T1 can perform actions such as alternately tapping the ground with one foot, shaking the hips, turning quickly, and leaning back. During the performance, even if it is suddenly hit by a chair, it will not affect the dance posture and stability.

The skills demonstrated by Zhongqing Technology's humanoid robot PM01 are related to the humanoid robot half marathon.

When humans run, multiple muscle groups are involved. The lower limb muscles alone include the quadriceps, hamstrings, gluteus maximus/medius, and calf muscles.

"The difficulty of robot running lies in balance control, gait transition and dynamic complexity. Compared with walking, running requires the robot to quickly switch between 'double support' and 'single support' and overcome the short air phase to ensure a stable landing. At the same time, in order to cope with different ground conditions, the robot must use high-precision sensors and control algorithms to adjust its own posture in real time," Yao Qiyuan, co-founder and head of marketing of Zhongqing Robotics, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter that the current instantaneous speed of Zhongqing PM01 can reach up to 12 kilometers per hour.

Will PM01 participate in the world's first humanoid robot half marathon held in mid-April? Yao Qiyuan responded with a fist pump.

If we ship 10,000 units

When humanoid mechas were presented on drawings in the mid-20th century, could the author Leonardo da Vinci at the time have foreseen this day, foreseeing that the "machine warrior" in his drawings, which was powered by wind and water power, could move its limbs freely, sit, wave its arms and even speak, would be realized in the 2020s of the 21st century.

Thirty years ago, when Marc Raibert founded Boston Dynamics, the current founder of the AI Institute, he probably didn’t expect that placing an order for a few Yushu Technology robots would be given such great significance.

According to the report "Humanoid Robots, From Ideal to Reality" released by Guojin Securities analysts Man Zaipeng, Qin Yanan and Ran Ting, 2024 will be the first year of the release of the global humanoid robot prototype, 2025 is expected to be the first year of mass production of humanoid robots, and by 2026 there will be an explosion of commercial applications.

"The industry usually defines dozens to hundreds of units as small-scale mass production, which is also a key stage for technology verification, market testing, and customer feedback collection." Zhang Miao, co-founder and COO of Beijing Zhongke Huiling Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Lingbao CASBOT"), and his team agree with this statement, "When the output exceeds 100 units, it is a large-scale mass production at the current stage. Lingbao CASBOT is expected to achieve small-scale mass production in 2025."

"We are one of the few humanoid robot companies that can deliver globally. The 50th unit was delivered in January, and the 100th unit was delivered in early March. Our customers are located in the United States, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, etc," Cheng Hao listed a long list of countries and regions to the Beijing Business Daily reporter.

In November 2024, Leju Robotics proposed "mass production upon release", and in January 2025, the 100th full-size humanoid robot will be delivered to BAIC Off-Road Vehicle.

"This year (2025), Leju expects to deliver 1,000 to 2,000 units. If we can reach around 2,000 units this year, it won't be difficult to reach around 10,000 units next year," Leng Xiaokun revealed to the Beijing Business Daily reporter.

He also made an analogy, "Once the production of humanoid robots reaches 10,000 units, it will basically be comparable to the production of new energy vehicles in 2013. By then, everyone's route will be very clear, because humanoid robots and new energy vehicles both belong to the large manufacturing industry."

It is not easy to move from the laboratory to large-scale commercial use. "Invisible barriers at the industry level, such as deep supply chain binding, patent layout density, and standardization discourse power, these 'hidden line capabilities' determine whether the technology can move from the laboratory to large-scale commercial use," Zhang Miao concluded. Laymen focus on "what robots can do", while insiders compete on "how to achieve large-scale implementation at a lower cost and higher reliability."

Regarding mass production, Leng Xiaokun explained to the Beijing Business Daily reporter from another perspective, "If we only look at the cerebellum and the body, 2025 is indeed the first year of mass production, because the robots delivered by each company can move, walk, and wave. But the true industrialization of humanoid robots must be a fusion of the brain, cerebellum, and the body itself, that is, embodied intelligence, which is mass production in the strict sense."

He recalled that when relevant departments held a symposium at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, "there were only three or four companies in China making humanoid robots. Later, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology took charge, and now there are two or three hundred companies." Leng Xiaokun used numbers to prove the tremendous progress of the industry.

Turn the focus to the industrial chain

The research and development, manufacturing, and application of robots are important indicators of a country's scientific and technological innovation and high-end manufacturing level. They are known as the "jewel in the crown of the manufacturing industry", and this is especially true for humanoid robots.

Large models can prove their capabilities by making the list, but "there is no list for humanoid robots or embodied intelligent robots, because the industry is still in the exploration stage and is far from forming a consensus on standards," Li Qing (pseudonym), a practitioner in the humanoid robot industry, told the Beijing Business Daily reporter.

Despite this, it did not prevent a large number of entrepreneurial companies from being born in the embodied intelligence track. In 2024, embodied intelligence suddenly became popular in the capital circle, attracting a large amount of investors' attention and capital inflow.

These new players are also becoming more "comprehensive", and most of them have experience, market sense and resource integration capabilities. According to incomplete statistics, the founding teams of embodied intelligence companies established since 2023 mostly have senior management backgrounds in large companies, some from new car companies such as Xiaopeng and Ideal, some from Baidu and Horizon Robotics, a self-driving chip manufacturer, and some business managers who have worked for consumer hardware manufacturers such as Huawei, Xiaomi, Dreame, and OPPO.

At the policy level, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots" in 2023, proposing that by 2025, a humanoid robot innovation system will be initially established, 2-3 ecological enterprises with global influence and a group of specialized and new small and medium-sized enterprises will be cultivated, 2-3 industrial development clusters will be created, and a number of new businesses, new models, and new business formats will be nurtured and developed. By 2027, the technological innovation capability of humanoid robots will be significantly enhanced, a safe and reliable industrial chain and supply chain system will be formed, an internationally competitive industrial ecosystem will be built, and the comprehensive strength will reach the world's advanced level.

Expanding the concept of humanoid robots to embodied intelligence, the "Beijing Embodied Intelligence Science and Technology Innovation and Industry Cultivation Action Plan (2025-2027)" jointly issued by the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission and others in February 2025 proposed that by 2027, no less than 100 key technologies will be broken through, no less than 10 internationally leading software and hardware products will be produced, and the upstream and downstream industrial chains of embodied intelligence will be basically localized.

The scale of the industry will be further expanded, and no less than 50 core upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain will be cultivated, no less than 50 mass-produced products will be formed, and no less than 100 large-scale applications will be realized in the three major scenarios of scientific research and education, industrial commerce, and personalized services. The total scale of mass production will be the first to exceed 10,000 units, and an industrial cluster of 100 billion yuan will be cultivated.

Amid the heat, the relationships and rhetoric of the entire upstream and downstream industries are also changing.

"Now there is no need to explain to customers what humanoid robots are. Customers will directly ask what scenarios we have and whether your humanoid robots can do it." Leng Xiaokun said, "Even if there is a gap between the actual implementation and the video demonstration, the country's clear support keeps the industry chain open. Everyone knows that humanoid robots will definitely explode and will be industrialized."

Cheng Hao was more direct. “We feel that this wave of popularity is the strongest in history, but compared with the big opportunities that will come later, it’s just a small opportunity now,” he said with a smile.