LONDON, Feb. 26 – Starting in 2026, Chinese-developed humanoid robots have repeatedly broken into the mainstream, from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas to China's Spring Festival Gala. Products and applications from multiple Chinese companies have not only sparked discussions within the industry overseas but have also consistently trended on global social media platforms and in international media. This validates a widely held industry view: at this critical juncture of technological explosion and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence (AI) is integrating into the physical world through carriers, and embodied intelligence is rapidly entering an era of practical application. In this process, China, leveraging significant policy support, accelerated technological innovation, a continuously improving industrial chain, and increasingly diverse application scenarios, is becoming a major driving force in this frontier global industry transformation.
Unifying Knowledge and Action: A New AI Phase The mid-2020s may be remembered as a period when AI ceased to be merely a screen-based productivity tool and began operating as physical systems within the real economy, according to a World Economic Forum report released in February. A report from Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, also released in February, noted that while global attention over the past three years has been on generative AI, chatbots, and new models from leading AI labs, a quieter revolution is underway, considered by many to represent the next phase of AI development: the arrival of physical AI.
Human intelligence results from the interaction of the brain, body, and environment. Embodied intelligence follows a similar logic, emphasizing not only the computational power of the AI "brain" but also its integration with physical entities. It represents intelligent agents capable of unifying perception, cognition, decision-making, and action. Humanoid robots are seen as its optimal form, potentially becoming the next-generation super terminal following smartphones and new energy vehicles. A report from the Emerging Technology and Security Centre at the UK's Alan Turing Institute, released earlier this year, listed "the rise of embodied and embedded AI" as one of the top technology trends to watch in 2026. The report stated that AI is increasingly being integrated into physical systems. Embodied intelligence utilizes sensors, motors, and natural language processing to enable robots, drones, and autonomous vehicles to perceive, reason, and act in the real world.
Commercial Deployment: A Historic Turning Point The industry widely agrees that the primary trend in embodied intelligence development this year is the paradigm shift from lab demonstrations to scaled commercial deployment. Deloitte's latest 2026 Technology Trends report indicates that physical AI is ready for mainstream deployment. The World Economic Forum report stated that in early 2026, embodied intelligence began transitioning from the research phase to industrial application. A report from the authoritative market research firm M&M released last June said the embodied intelligence market is undergoing a transformative shift, driven by evolving technologies and user demands. Quantitatively, the global embodied intelligence market size was approximately $4.44 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of about 39%, and is projected to reach $23 billion by 2030.
Simultaneously, the global community seems to anticipate major breakthroughs in the field of embodied intelligence. NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang, in his CES speech this year, pointed out that AI evolution will progress from perception, generation, and agency to physical AI that understands the physical world, believing the "ChatGPT moment" for physical AI is imminent. However, the development of emerging technologies is not instantaneous. At this stage, embodied intelligence still faces challenges such as immature large robot models and a lack of high-quality AI training data, and it is not yet fully mature in terms of technical pathways, business models, and application scenarios. As Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Technology, noted, embodied intelligence is still in its infancy. If breakthroughs occur in the coming years in embodied intelligence AI models and robotic technologies capable of large-scale application, the excitement "will far surpass that of the mobile internet."
"China Speed": Driving Industrial Development From performing fully autonomous tasks at CES in January to sharing the stage with humans during the Spring Festival Gala; from securing major industrial orders and pioneering "leasing models" to breaking boundaries at large sporting events... products and applications from several Chinese humanoid robot companies have gone viral online. Many scholars note that China has developed advantages in scientific and technological innovation across multiple aspects—be it the pace of technological evolution, the openness of scenarios, industry attention, or talent concentration—and is well-prepared for the new wave of technological revolution represented by embodied intelligence.
American entrepreneur Elon Musk previously commented on technologies like humanoid robots, stating, "Many people outside of China underestimate China, but China is very strong." This prominence is not fleeting but reflects concentrated outcomes from China's policy support for scientific innovation, along with continuously increasing industrial investment, accumulated technological breakthroughs, and an improving industrial chain in embodied intelligence in recent years.
In 2025, embodied intelligence was included in the Chinese government work report for the first time. From establishing hundred-billion-yuan industrial funds to focusing on core technology breakthroughs, cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen have launched a series of measures to accelerate the development of the embodied intelligence industry. Embodied intelligence is being elevated from a technological concept to a national strategy and a key focus for local development.
A report from the Development Research Center of the State Council released last October indicated that China's embodied intelligence industry market size is expected to exceed ten trillion yuan by 2035. Data from international institutions corroborates this trend. According to a report released by International Data Corporation (IDC) in January, humanoid robots have officially entered the stage of scaled commercial use, with global shipments reaching approximately 18,000 units in 2025, with China accounting for a major share. Comparing the current technical level to that of a year ago, multiple European and American media outlets have expressed astonishment at the speed of China's technological innovation, believing that China will be a significant driver of the global embodied intelligence industry's development.
It is foreseeable that the vigorous development of China's embodied intelligence industry will not only drive further leaps in new quality productive forces across sectors like transportation and logistics, industrial manufacturing, and commercial services but will also enable emerging technologies to enter households and communities more rapidly, bringing greater convenience and tangible benefits to ordinary people.
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