Dancing, Tai Chi, and Carp Jumps... Humanoid robots are getting closer to entering your home

The 2025 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Meeting is being held in Beijing. The annual meeting uses cutting-edge technologies such as embodied intelligent robots, AI large models, and intelligent displays. Robots of various forms are very "eye-catching". A group of humanoid robots that can dance and do Tai Chi became actors at the opening ceremony, bringing the audience a unique performance.

00:52

Robots can not only perform dances, they can also practice Tai Chi, demonstrating the flexibility of their limbs and the stability of their steps with every move they make.

Iranian guest He Fei: This is the first time I have come into contact with so many robots produced in China. They have rich functions and respond quickly, so they really represent the power and charm of new quality productivity.

Faced with the live filming of so many guests, the robots were not nervous at all, but their technical guidance was both excited and nervous. Everyone took every application scenario seriously and also found problems in the application.

Su Yao, technical director of a certain robotics technology company: We still have to work hard to better demonstrate the effects when multiple devices perform at the same time. This is our next step in improving the algorithm.

A look behind the scenes of the humanoid robot rehearsal

On the eve of the forum's opening (25th), CCTV reporters interviewed the robot performance team during their rehearsal. What difficulties did the robot actors encounter? How did the technical team deal with them?

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After receiving the task, the two Beijing robot companies participating in the performance spent about a week in the laboratory, training the robots through artificial intelligence models, optimizing the test procedures, and teaching them the movements required for the performance. In order to ensure that more than a dozen robots were not interfered with and received the signals synchronously, the technical team worked hard.

In order to ensure that every rehearsal and performance goes smoothly, each robot is equipped with a dedicated technician. Faced with a robot that lost its balance and fell to the ground just after it came on stage, the young technical team remained calm and carried out inspections according to their duties.

After the problem was solved, the technician confidently pressed the restart button. The robot stood up again, held its head high, and waved to the audience.

Humanoid robots improve endurance and have more diverse training venues

As a new generation of intelligent terminals, how far are humanoid robots from "entering" thousands of households?

02:49

Two days before the official performance, the robot performance team participated in the last full-process rehearsal before the opening of the Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference. Outside the venue, the reporter saw that the robots waiting to perform were all hung on a rack.

Su Yao, technical director of a robot technology company: It plays a role in rapid transportation and protection, so that it is convenient to transport the robot when it runs out of power. Because it cannot maintain stability on its own without power, it can travel for about an hour and a half when fully charged.

Su Yao, technical director of a robot technology company: We expect the robot to be able to support at least half a day of work, but the current battery energy density is not enough to achieve this. So we specially designed a hot-swappable mechanical structure so that the robot can complete the battery replacement while continuing to work.

Improving the endurance of the robot's power supply system and making it more powerful is not something that can be done overnight. At the same time, a single laboratory training environment can no longer meet the needs of robot development. In order for robots to truly complete tasks intelligently, a large number of problems related to algorithms, operation control, and even production must be solved.

Taking the robots that received the performance task this time as an example, it is no problem for them to perform somersaults on a smooth ground, but the performance venue is covered with soft carpet, so they have to undergo new training before officially going on stage.

Xu Lei, marketing director of a technology company: This robot uses a stand-up reinforcement learning framework, and sets a variety of terrain conditions during the training process, including grass, gravel, tiled roads and slopes, to ensure that it can achieve stable stand-up on different surfaces. At present, the technology has a certain degree of environmental adaptability, but to be fully applicable to general household scenarios, further research and development is still needed, which is expected to take two to three years.

From a technical point of view, humanoid robots must first be widely used and certified in industrial manufacturing, commercial services and other fields before they can lay a technical foundation for entering the home market. At present, the industrial layout of humanoid robots is advancing rapidly, and some humanoid robots have been mass-produced.

Xu Lei, marketing director of a certain technology company: This robot has been in mass production for about half a year and has been shipped globally. We have orders from ten countries.

In the future, with continuous breakthroughs in industry technology research and development, continuous improvement in intelligence levels, and gradually clearer scenario verification, humanoid robots will also accelerate their entry into daily life.