On October 22, a themed dialogue titled "The 'Last Mile' of Embodied Intelligence: Scenario Implementation and Value Verification" was held in Shanghai during the 2026 Sustainable Global Leaders Conference. Wang Wei, COO of Weibo-SW (WB-SW), CEO of Sina Mobile, and Chairman of the Weibo Technology Committee, said that humanoid robots have a realistic foundation in terms of environmental adaptation, training convenience, and human-machine collaboration, but being humanoid is not the only answer for embodied intelligence, and "generality" should certainly not be simply equated with "looking like a human."
Wang Wei believes that from three perspectives, the humanoid route has a certain rationale. First, most of the existing household and public environments for humans are designed according to the human body structure, including doors, stairs, and various tools and facilities. Adopting a form similar to that of humans can reduce the cost for robots to adapt to existing environments. Second, current embodied intelligence training relies heavily on simulation and human motion data. By collecting human movements and operation processes through virtual reality devices and then providing them for robots to learn, a humanoid structure makes it easier to inherit and reuse such training data. In addition, as robots further enter production and daily life, human-machine collaboration will become an important development direction. A form similar to that of humans helps reduce social cognition and acceptance costs, and can also provide a more intuitive reference for responsibility allocation and regulatory governance.
However, Wang Wei also pointed out that the realistic rationality of being humanoid does not mean that all robots should prioritize a humanoid form. "Form follows function" remains a basic principle of industrial design. The form of a robot should be determined by actual tasks and application scenarios, rather than first determining the appearance and then looking for needs to match it. "Generality cannot be simply understood as 'looking like a human,'" Wang Wei said. The general capabilities of robots mainly come from the generalization of perception, control, data, and learning abilities. Appearance is only one path to achieving functionality. Whether a technical route is viable ultimately still depends on whether it can operate stably in real scenarios and create actual value.
Speaking of the reasons for the rapid rise of humanoid robots in recent years, Wang Wei believes that this round of industrial development明显 accelerated around 2023, closely related to the maturity of the new energy vehicle industry chain. The new energy vehicle industry has driven the rapid development of key components such as servo motors, reducers, drive systems, batteries, and cameras, and has also provided a more mature technology and supply chain foundation for humanoid robots. "The rapid development of humanoid robots is not entirely driven by the demand side. The maturity of the supply chain and the improvement of technology supply capacity have also played an important role," Wang Wei said. Observing embodied intelligence requires seeing both the realistic foundation of the humanoid route and recognizing that it still has distinct阶段性 characteristics at present. In the future, what form robots ultimately adopt should still return to specific scenarios, actual functions, and commercial value.
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