On April 28, a media research initiative titled "Intelligent Manufacturing Leads, Innovation Drives the Future—Focusing on BIA's Practices in Developing New Quality Productive Forces" officially commenced at the Beijing Institute of Automation Co., Ltd. (BIA). Through on-site visits to R&D laboratories, intelligent equipment exhibition halls, and project testing workshops, coupled with an in-depth dialogue with BIA's Party Committee Secretary and Chairman Wang Zhenlin, a comprehensive investigation was conducted into this technology-focused central state-owned enterprise, which has over 70 years of experience in industrial automation. The focus was on its technological layout, application scenarios, standard leadership, and industrial empowerment achievements in the fields of embodied intelligence and humanoid robotics.
Upon entering the BIA R&D park, the slogan "Dare to Scale the Heights of Technology, Build a Strong Industrial Foundation with Intelligence" was particularly striking. In a specialized laboratory, a researcher intently monitored a computer screen, controlling a humanoid robot to collect data on movements and force control in an industrial assembly scenario. The subtle sounds of joint operation and real-time parameter curves vividly demonstrated the entire process of embodied intelligence transitioning from technological R&D to industrial application.
Currently, embodied intelligence has become a core area in global technological competition and manufacturing upgrading, bearing the critical mission of cultivating new quality productive forces. IDC data indicates that the global market size for intelligent robot hardware will approach $30 billion by 2026, with the Chinese market exceeding $11 billion, becoming the core engine of industry growth. Data from the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology also confirms that China's humanoid robot market will reach 8.5 billion yuan by 2025, accounting for over half of the global total, with the industry accelerating from technological validation to commercial pilot projects.
Against the dual backdrop of rapid industry development and intensifying competition, BIA, as a national leader in the automation, informatization, intelligentization, and integrated innovation of the equipment manufacturing industry, has carved out a differentiated development path for humanoid robots based on its profound industrial technology heritage and pragmatic industrialization orientation, providing a replicable practical model for high-quality industry development.
**1. Rooted in Industrial Scenarios**
After more than 70 years of development, starting from the independent R&D of the first electronic induction accelerator and the first automated high-bay warehouse, BIA has accumulated over 600 key scientific achievements and delivered more than 3,000 major engineering projects. Its business covers multiple core sectors of the national economy, including automotive, metallurgy, petrochemicals, energy, and food, having long沉淀ed mature industrial system integration capabilities and scenario adaptation experience. This is precisely the core confidence behind its entry into the humanoid robot sector.
While the global humanoid robot industry appears to be booming, it generally faces the dilemma of a disconnect between laboratory prototypes and industrial applications: core components rely on imports, robots lack generalization capabilities, engineering adaptation is difficult, costs remain high, and mass production bottlenecks are hard to break. "Showy" R&D detached from real industrial scenarios has kept the industry stuck in a pilot project predicament.
"Industrial scenarios are the core touchstone for the application of humanoid robot technology. Conducting technological iterations divorced from real industrial working conditions is destined to fail in achieving true industrialization. Only by advancing R&D aligned with actual industrial needs can we break down the barriers between technology and application," Wang Zhenlin, Party Committee Secretary and Chairman of BIA, stated.
Different from some companies in the industry that focus on general-purpose humanoid robots and pursue action demonstrations, BIA consistently adheres to an industrialization orientation. It deeply integrates its over 70 years of system integration advantages with real industrial operation scenarios, eschewing浮躁concept炒作, and anchors itself in industrial刚性needs such as precision assembly, meat cutting, industrial inspection, logistics handling, and pharmaceutical warehouse picking. It uses real-world settings like factory workshops and warehouse logistics as practical training grounds for the iteration and refinement of humanoid robot technology, ensuring the entire R&D process aligns with the actual needs of industrial production.
In a robot testing workshop of a subsidiary, a humanoid robot work unit specifically designed for the pharmaceutical industry operates smoothly. Within the transparent work area, the robot moves accurately and operates orderly,直观demonstrating the effective implementation of a full-process solution for goods-to-person picking in pharmaceuticals, and showcasing the company's mature technical strength in the integrated application of logistics automation and humanoid robots.
Xu Hui, a leading researcher who won the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award, stood by the work unit and explained to reporters, "For the humanoid robot's dexterous hand to complete the entire set of actions—picking individual pharmaceutical items, scanning drug regulatory codes, and correctly placing order boxes—it requires precise collection, real-time adjustment, and dynamic adaptation of force data. It must match different grasping forces for different drug dosage forms and packaging, ensuring a secure grip without damaging the packaging, all while meeting the precise requirements of pharmaceutical operations. Currently, this system's operational error is controlled within a minimal range, fully complying with the stringent operational standards of the pharmaceutical industry. More importantly, we have successfully integrated the humanoid robot with the entire smart logistics system."
Xu Hui further added that as a core business entity deeply involved in the integrated application of logistics automation and humanoid robots, the company leverages its dual technological积淀in these two fields to specifically address pain points in pharmaceutical warehouse operations. This mature, implemented solution directly tackles the industry's core demands for high precision, strong compliance, and handling multiple SKUs. It can accurately perform key operations such as picking individual items, automatic scanning and verification of drug regulatory codes, and precise classification and placement of order boxes, maintaining a consistently high picking accuracy rate and fully adapting to strict industry standards like pharmaceutical cold chain and GMP. Compared to traditional manual operations, this solution requires no large-scale modification of existing warehouse facilities, offers flexible and convenient deployment, efficiently handles cyclical fluctuations in pharmaceutical orders, improves operational efficiency, and significantly reduces labor costs and compliance risks in pharmaceutical warehousing.
A wheeled-arm humanoid robot developed for complex environments in the food industry integrates visual perception, flexible manipulation, autonomous navigation, and human-robot collaboration. It can adapt to the damp, low-temperature conditions of meat cutting scenarios, compensating for the lack of flexibility in traditional automation equipment. Inspection robots act as industrial智能sentinels, integrating multi-source sensing and AI technology to provide round-the-clock unmanned monitoring solutions for substations and chemical industrial parks, effectively replacing humans in high-risk, repetitive tasks.
Relying on its "one-body, two-levels, multi-platform" innovation system and a dedicated R&D team of nearly 200 people, BIA continues to攻坚core technologies such as embodied intelligence, high-precision motion control, and human-robot collaboration. It integrates pilot testing and engineering adaptation into the R&D phase early on, proactively considering practical issues like cost control, mass production, and production line compatibility. This approach gradually breaks down the conversion barriers from laboratory prototypes to large-scale industrial applications, systematically solving the three core industry-wide challenges of engineering adaptation, cost control, and mass production.
Wang Zhenlin stated that BIA always bases its efforts on the needs of manufacturing upgrading, ensuring humanoid robot technology is rooted in and serves industry, truly becoming a practical carrier for promoting the development of new quality productive forces.
**2. Seizing the Standard High Ground**
As the humanoid robot industry enters a critical phase of engineering implementation, the lack of standards has become a core constraint hindering the standardized development of the global industry: inconsistent dataset formats, no unified metrics for technical indicators, and incomplete safety regulations not only lead to low-level redundant construction but also trap national industries in the困境of data silos and rule competition. Major global economies are actively布局the standards arena; the competition for standards has essentially become a battle for dominance in the humanoid robot industry.
As the secretariat unit for industry organizations like the National Robotics Standardization Technical Committee and the National Standardization Technical Committee for Industrial Automation Systems and Integration, BIA has long been deeply involved in industry standard formulation, having led the development of over 410 national standards across various fields. Facing the global vacuum in humanoid robot standards, BIA planned ahead and took proactive steps, achieving a historic breakthrough by 2026: the world's first international standard for humanoid robot datasets, ISO 26264-1, which it led, was officially established within the International Organization for Standardization's Technical Committee for Robotics (ISO/TC 299). Concurrently, BIA led the establishment of the ISO/TC 299/WG16 Working Group on Humanoid Robot Datasets, with a BIA expert appointed as the convener.
This achievement marked two "zero breakthroughs" for China: leading the formulation of an international standard for humanoid robots and chairing an international robotics standard working group. It also elevated China from a follower in global robotics standards to a frontrunner in specific areas. It was learned that this standard proposal received a high approval rate of 88% in the global establishment vote, far exceeding the ISO's 66.66% threshold, fully demonstrating the international industry's high recognition of BIA's technical strength and China's industrial practices.
"This standard establishes a full lifecycle framework for humanoid robot datasets, equivalent to creating a universal textbook for global humanoid robot R&D,彻底breaking down data interoperability barriers," Wang Zhenlin explained regarding the standard's value.
Unlike purely technical specifications, this standard covers the entire process of dataset planning, collection, annotation, storage, and retirement, defining common requirements for data quality, security, and privacy. It addresses the pain points of incompatible and hard-to-share R&D data in global humanoid robotics, laying the foundation for algorithm training, scenario adaptation, and cross-domain collaboration. Currently, the working group has gathered top experts from multiple countries. BIA is collaborating with European industrial and research resources to build an open and collaborative standard formulation system, gradually forming a global competitive advantage based on "Chinese Standards + Chinese Technology + Chinese Scenarios."
Leveraging its standard leadership advantage, BIA simultaneously promotes the deep integration of standards with technological R&D and industrial application, embedding standard requirements into the entire process of humanoid robot R&D, design, testing, and engineering to drive industry standardization. Furthermore, it actively plays its role in industry organizations, leading the establishment of a humanoid robot standardization working group, publishing industry white papers, and promoting an international standard conversion rate of over 94%, using standards to empower industrial upgrading and demonstrating the responsibility and commitment of a technology-focused central SOE in the global robotics field.
**3. Clarifying the Logic of Capital and Technology Competition**
The explosive growth of the humanoid robot sector has attracted significant capital inflow. A report from亿欧ZhiKu indicates that third-party institutions predict the overall market size of embodied intelligence could reach 12.5 trillion yuan by 2027. However, high sector valuations, some capital's eagerness to exit, and homogeneous布局have led to debates about a "capital bubble." Meanwhile, intensified global competition in intelligent technology, particularly the technological gap between China and the US in AI and robotics, has become a core topic of industry concern.
Wang Zhenlin offered a rational and professional judgment from the perspective of long-term industry development. He believes that capital concentration in the early stages of an emerging industry is a normal phenomenon and does not equate to a capital bubble. Humanoid robotics is a technology-intensive, long-iteration-cycle strategic industry. Early-stage capital involvement can effectively pool innovation resources, accelerate technology普及,完善the industry chain, and cultivate the industrial ecosystem, playing a positive role in the industry's inception.
From the perspective of industrial development stages, the global humanoid robot industry is still in the early phase of engineering implementation, with no signs of overcapacity or homogeneous involution. The core value lies in technological breakthroughs and the effectiveness of scenario application, not short-term operational profits. Rational, long-term capital support will help companies攻克core technologies and advance industrialization. Blindly negating the role of capital or excessively放大bubble concerns is not conducive to healthy industry development.
Regarding the global technology competition landscape, Wang Zhenlin acknowledged that the US holds a first-mover advantage in symbolic logic reasoning and connectionist deep learning algorithms, with a deep accumulation in basic research. However, the world has now simultaneously entered a new stage of embodied intelligence development. The industry's core focus is no longer solely on single-algorithm R&D but on comprehensive capabilities like robot interaction and adaptation to the physical environment, multimodal perception, and autonomous decision-making. Countries are essentially on the same starting line. BIA focuses on the embodied intelligence technology route, deeply cultivates interaction and adaptation in industrial scenarios, and leverages China's advantages of a complete manufacturing industry chain and rich application scenarios to continuously advance technological engineering implementation. The future global technology gap will depend on the efficiency of technology conversion, the speed of engineering implementation, and the capability for industrial chain synergy, rather than first-mover advantage in any single area.
Based on its own development, BIA always adheres to its role as a national leader, avoiding盲目following market trends and focusing on攻坚common industry technical challenges and "bottleneck" areas. On one hand, it continues to advance R&D in core technologies like domestic PLC underlying control systems, industrial software, and high-end hydraulic components to break foreign technological monopolies. On the other hand, it collaborates with provincial and municipal industry and information technology departments to provide intelligent diagnosis and technical training services for thousands of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. Through industry summits and technical forums, it disseminates smart manufacturing concepts and technologies, assists SMEs in digital transformation, and promotes the coordinated upgrading of regional manufacturing.
**4. Strengthening the Core Capability of National Leadership in Innovation**
As a technology-focused central SOE, BIA achieved significant results during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period. Its operating revenue, total profit, and total assets reached 2 times, 1.8 times, and 2.4 times, respectively, the figures at the end of the "13th Five-Year Plan," achieving the "double doubling" target one year ahead of schedule, realizing a leap in both operational scale and development quality.
Relying on multiple national-level innovation platforms such as the National Engineering Research Center for Manufacturing Automation and the Technological Innovation Center for High-Performance Hydraulic Components, BIA continues to increase R&D investment. Its R&D intensity reached 8.16% in 2025. It has accumulated over 30 awards, including the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award and ministerial/provincial-level science and technology awards, and been granted over 100 invention patents, continuously enhancing its core technical strength and industry influence.
Standing at the new starting point of the "15th Five-Year Plan," BIA has defined its medium-to-long-term strategic布局. It will continue to focus on its main responsibilities and core businesses, empower new quality productive forces with technological innovation, prioritize strategic emerging industries like industrial software, integrated circuits, and industrial 5G, continuously improve the coordinated development pattern of "one headquarters + three bases," and build a trinity collaborative development network integrating "scientific research, pilot testing, and manufacturing."
In the humanoid robot sector, BIA will deepen three core布局: First, continue to深耕industrial scenarios, focusing on刚性needs like precision assembly, logistics handling, and special inspections, creating a batch of replicable, scalable benchmark projects to accelerate the conversion of technological achievements and further solve the problems of cost, mass production, and engineering adaptation. Second, consolidate its international standard leadership position, using the ISO 26264-1 international standard as the core to完善domestic and international standard systems, and promote Chinese humanoid robot standards, technologies, and solutions globally. Third, continue to攻坚core technologies, increasing R&D in embodied intelligence, high-precision motion control, digital twins, domestic underlying control systems, etc., to solidify underlying technical barriers and strengthen technological self-sufficiency and controllability.
Simultaneously, BIA will coordinate the synergistic development of five business segments: integrated equipment, industrial software, unit equipment, core components, and technical services. The integrated equipment business, accounting for 80% of its operations, will continue to深耕industries like automotive, food, new energy, and logistics, creating more benchmark projects. Relying on specialized companies like Zhongji Shuke, it will accelerate the process of achieving self-sufficiency in industrial software and promote the large-scale application of software like cloud MES and thermal processing CAE in industrial scenarios. Based on the development trends of each business segment and market demand, it will flexibly advance resource integration and specialized operations, leveraging its listed company platform to accelerate the industrialization of technological achievements.
"BIA always adheres to three positioning principles: 'serving national strategy, promoting industry development, and accelerating the building of a first-class enterprise,' considering technological self-reliance and self-improvement as the core of its development," Wang Zhenlin said.
From serving national key projects like the Three Gorges Dam, large aircraft, and manned space stations, to leading the formulation of the world's first humanoid robot international standard; from攻克"bottleneck" technologies in industrial automation to empowering the digital transformation of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises, BIA's over 70 years of innovative practice have always resonated with national strategy and industrial needs.
In the future, BIA will continue to use technological innovation as its core engine, with strategic emerging industries like humanoid robots as breakthrough points, fully exerting the innovative leadership role of a national team. Within the construction of a modern industrial system and the formation of a new development格局, it will continuously strengthen its role in technological innovation, industrial control, and safety support, pragmatically and innovatively promoting the high-end, intelligent, and green transformation of the equipment manufacturing industry, contributing solid BIA strength to the modernization drive.
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