This weekend, the World Robot Conference was extremely popular, and the exhibition area launched a "crowd following" mode. Whether it's the "working robots" on the factory assembly line, the "home service workers" serving elderly care at home, or the "football players" and "fighters" on the sports field... Robots no longer only have the appearance of humans, but also master some production and life skills.

More noteworthy is that at this year's conference, many robots were priced clearly, ranging from 1 million to 499000 yuan, to 259000 to 88000 yuan, which is still relatively high for ordinary households. Industry insiders say that the bottleneck for robots entering households is not the price, but the breakthrough in intelligence. How to promote robots to enter thousands of households and serve thousands of industries? At this year's Robot Conference, Beijing Yizhuang launched the embodied intelligent society experimental plan, which will create a comprehensive training field for human-machine collaboration and industry research integration. At the same time, Yizhuang will deepen the innovative application plan for 10000 robots, gradually releasing the demand for 10000 embodied robots worth nearly 5 billion yuan in the next two years.

At the 2025 World Robot Conference, the audience watched robot performances shoulder to shoulder, and robot boxing matches were particularly popular. Photo by Wang Fei, a reporter from the Beijing News

Being able to cook and do household chores, robots' show off 'are versatile

At around 10am on Sunday, the main exhibition hall of the World Robot Conference was crowded with spectators, with the most lively performances being highly entertaining such as robot fighting, robot soccer, and robot dance. The venue was surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside, making it impossible for people to watch. This year's robotics conference is free for minors, so there are many children in the exhibition hall. In various performance areas, children sit in front to watch, and some parents stand their children on their shoulders to watch the performance.

If the most attractive robots at last year's Robot Conference were those "beautiful" robots that looked like humans but had strange movements, language, and expressions, then the most eye-catching robots at this year's conference are embodied intelligent robots that are smarter, have more coordinated movements, and possess certain work and life skills, and are expected to serve human life.

Ms. Xiao, who visited the elderly care service exhibition area, told reporters, "I brought my children to visit last year and two years ago. This year feels the most like a true robot conference because robots have become more practical." In this exhibition area, Ms. Xiao was interested in an intelligent electric wheelchair that has functions such as automatic navigation and active obstacle avoidance. If used indoors, the user inputs the destination, opens the start button, and the wheelchair can automatically navigate to the destination.

In the exhibition area, embodied intelligent robots occupy the vast majority. They are chefs, bartenders, salespersons, coffee shop assistants, cleaners, dancers, migrant workers, housekeeping workers... They involve all aspects of people's lives. Their movements are smooth, their joints are very flexible, and their skills are more in line with the needs of human life.

In the reception room of the Robot Conference, robot bartenders serve the audience. Photo by Wu Tingting, a reporter from the Beijing News

88000 yuan robot for on-site sale

Unlike previous robot conferences, this year many companies have set prices for their robots. The "reception room" area of the exhibition showcases a miniature version of Robot World 2.0. On site, drum robots, yangqin robots, and piano robots formed a combination of Chinese and Western robot bands. Although they played their own music, the music mix and match was also quite interesting. The most important thing is that the robots are clearly priced, with drum and piano robots priced at 259000 yuan each, and the Yangqin robot priced at 239000 yuan.

Next door to the band, the robot chef cooked stir fried meat with a fragrant aroma. The robot named "Meishan Lion 2K" is priced at 498000 yuan. The on-site staff told reporters that this robot can fry and stir fry, and most Chinese dishes are no problem. Users only need to follow the prompts to place the ingredients, and the rest can be handed over to the robot chef.

In the exhibition area, there is fierce competition among robots with clearly marked prices. A full-size humanoid robot is displayed on a billboard with the lowest price of 88000 yuan. It is reported that after training, this robot can become a "steel nanny", make soup, put clothes into the washing machine by category, and even fold clothes neatly. During the interview, the reporter saw an exhibitor leading a robot on a tour, also indicating the selling price. It looks like a robot dog and is capable of performing tasks such as line inspection. In addition, there are multiple robots with clear prices, such as the Ubiquitous Walker S1 priced at 1 million yuan and the Tianyi 2.0 from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center priced at 350000 yuan.

Transitioning from the 'most capable' to the 'most useful' robot

Although robots are much smarter this year, there are still occasional incidents of robots dancing, falling while working, and not following their commands, and there is still some distance to fully integrate into people's lives. So how can we make robots more user-friendly and practical, and what challenges still need to be overcome?

Cai Jizheng, Director of the Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Bureau of Beijing Economic Development Zone, said that currently, the speed of robot updates and iterations is very fast. "Taking this year's world's first humanoid robot half marathon race as an example, in August last year, we found that no company's robot could complete the race with the technical ability at that time. After just six months, in April this year, six teams of robots completed a 21 kilometer race in three to four hours." Cai Jizheng believes that robots entering households require further technological iteration and rapid updates, considering not only the safety and comfort of robots, but also the interaction between humans and robots. From these aspects, there are overall deficiencies in the technology and related capabilities of enterprises.

From the on-site reporter's observation of the robot's price, it can be seen that the price of robots is not yet affordable, with most costing tens of thousands of yuan or more. Zhao Xing, the chief scientist and co-founder of Xinghai Map, believes that the bottleneck for robots entering households is not price, but the key lies in breakthroughs in intelligence. "We can now make very beautiful robots, but it is challenging to let them work and autonomously complete tasks in a closed loop. When we have such ability, I think it is the time to discuss entering households

Xiong Youjun, General Manager of Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, stated that the innovation center is promoting the transition of embodied intelligence from pursuing extreme sports capabilities as the "most capable runner" to supporting complex scene system level applications as the "most useful". To address the challenges of autonomous learning, fully autonomous navigation, and cross ontology generalization capabilities in industrial applications, the Innovation Center will release innovative technologies such as embodied world model system, embodied multimodal large model, humanoid robot fully autonomous navigation system, and cross ontology VLA model at the Robot Conference. These technologies have enabled heterogeneous multi ontology collaborative work in complex scenarios, thus promoting a new chapter in the large-scale application of embodied intelligence.

In addition, Cai Jizheng believes that for the general public, it is necessary to gradually accept the process of robots entering households. "People are more likely to accept pets such as cats and dogs, but as a member of the family, how to truly make people accept or recognize robots, and how to integrate and coexist with robots in the family, is also a process for the general public." He invited the public to attend the Robot Conference and experience the latest technology. "I believe that robots will become a part of the family, which can be achieved in the near future

Beijing Yizhuang opens nearly a thousand real scene data collection points

Beijing Yizhuang is the permanent venue for the World Robot Conference and an important robotics industry cluster in Beijing. From a policy perspective, how can Yizhuang truly bring embodied intelligent robots into thousands of households and serve various industries? At this year's World Robot Conference, Beijing Yizhuang launched the embodied intelligent society experimental plan. Wang Lei, Director of the Beijing Economic Development Zone Management Committee, introduced that Beijing Yizhuang has opened up nearly a thousand real scene data collection points in Yizhuang New City, including supermarkets, hotels, pharmacies, hospitals, logistics warehouses, etc., to open up high-value, standardized, and tradable embodied intelligent data, serving the training of embodied intelligent models and the improvement of ontology intelligence level in the entire industry. Wang Lei said, "The first batch of 20 embodied intelligent training fields and nearly a hundred locations will officially open this month

At the same time, a robot secondary development community will be established around the sharing of innovative achievements in robotics, software and hardware integration collaboration, application scenario expansion, and industrial ecosystem cultivation. This community will provide developers with free universal robot ontology, research and development space, computing power subsidies, agile development, and other essential support, encouraging innovation teams to conduct secondary development for specific application scenarios. In addition, we have taken the lead in laying out pilot production factories for humanoid robots, providing services such as technology conversion, process improvement, type testing, and small-scale trial production.

Currently, Beijing Yizhuang has implemented over a thousand robot applications in factories, schools, hospitals, parks, and other settings. How to accelerate the implementation of products? The experimental plan for embodied intelligent society is clear. Beijing Yizhuang will deepen the innovative application plan for 10000 robots, gradually releasing the demand for 10000 embodied robots worth nearly 5 billion yuan in the next two years, including over a thousand humanoid robots. The application scenarios cover high-end manufacturing, education and teaching, parks and waterways, industrial parks, commercial services, medical and health care, power inspection, municipal management, community property and other key social and economic fields.

Wang Lei introduced that Beijing Yizhuang has formulated several measures to promote the innovative development of embodied intelligent robots, which proposes to invest 200 million yuan annually to provide policy support around software and hardware technology innovation, data element pilot testing, application scenario promotion, and cultivation of new business chains. Among them, 8 policies, including rewards for data collection training fields, support for secondary development communities, "sampling coupons," sales subsidies for humanoid robots, and support for supply chain response platforms, are the first of their kind in China.

This weekend, the World Robot Conference was extremely popular, and the exhibition area launched a "crowd following" mode. Whether it's the "working robots" on the factory assembly line, the "home service workers" serving elderly care at home, or the "football players" and "fighters" on the sports field... Robots no longer only have the appearance of humans, but also master some production and life skills.

More noteworthy is that at this year's conference, many robots were priced clearly, ranging from 1 million to 499000 yuan, to 259000 to 88000 yuan, which is still relatively high for ordinary households. Industry insiders say that the bottleneck for robots entering households is not the price, but the breakthrough in intelligence. How to promote robots to enter thousands of households and serve thousands of industries? At this year's Robot Conference, Beijing Yizhuang launched the embodied intelligent society experimental plan, which will create a comprehensive training field for human-machine collaboration and industry research integration. At the same time, Yizhuang will deepen the innovative application plan for 10000 robots, gradually releasing the demand for 10000 embodied robots worth nearly 5 billion yuan in the next two years.

At the 2025 World Robot Conference, the audience watched robot performances shoulder to shoulder, and robot boxing matches were particularly popular. Photo by Wang Fei, a reporter from the Beijing News

Being able to cook and do household chores, robots' show off 'are versatile

At around 10am on Sunday, the main exhibition hall of the World Robot Conference was crowded with spectators, with the most lively performances being highly entertaining such as robot fighting, robot soccer, and robot dance. The venue was surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside, making it impossible for people to watch. This year's robotics conference is free for minors, so there are many children in the exhibition hall. In various performance areas, children sit in front to watch, and some parents stand their children on their shoulders to watch the performance.

If the most attractive robots at last year's Robot Conference were those "beautiful" robots that looked like humans but had strange movements, language, and expressions, then the most eye-catching robots at this year's conference are embodied intelligent robots that are smarter, have more coordinated movements, and possess certain work and life skills, and are expected to serve human life.

Ms. Xiao, who visited the elderly care service exhibition area, told reporters, "I brought my children to visit last year and two years ago. This year feels the most like a true robot conference because robots have become more practical." In this exhibition area, Ms. Xiao was interested in an intelligent electric wheelchair that has functions such as automatic navigation and active obstacle avoidance. If used indoors, the user inputs the destination, opens the start button, and the wheelchair can automatically navigate to the destination.

In the exhibition area, embodied intelligent robots occupy the vast majority. They are chefs, bartenders, salespersons, coffee shop assistants, cleaners, dancers, migrant workers, housekeeping workers... They involve all aspects of people's lives. Their movements are smooth, their joints are very flexible, and their skills are more in line with the needs of human life.

In the reception room of the Robot Conference, robot bartenders serve the audience. Photo by Wu Tingting, a reporter from the Beijing News

88000 yuan robot for on-site sale

Unlike previous robot conferences, this year many companies have set prices for their robots. The "reception room" area of the exhibition showcases a miniature version of Robot World 2.0. On site, drum robots, yangqin robots, and piano robots formed a combination of Chinese and Western robot bands. Although they played their own music, the music mix and match was also quite interesting. The most important thing is that the robots are clearly priced, with drum and piano robots priced at 259000 yuan each, and the Yangqin robot priced at 239000 yuan.

Next door to the band, the robot chef cooked stir fried meat with a fragrant aroma. The robot named "Meishan Lion 2K" is priced at 498000 yuan. The on-site staff told reporters that this robot can fry and stir fry, and most Chinese dishes are no problem. Users only need to follow the prompts to place the ingredients, and the rest can be handed over to the robot chef.

In the exhibition area, there is fierce competition among robots with clearly marked prices. A full-size humanoid robot is displayed on a billboard with the lowest price of 88000 yuan. It is reported that after training, this robot can become a "steel nanny", make soup, put clothes into the washing machine by category, and even fold clothes neatly. During the interview, the reporter saw an exhibitor leading a robot on a tour, also indicating the selling price. It looks like a robot dog and is capable of performing tasks such as line inspection. In addition, there are multiple robots with clear prices, such as the Ubiquitous Walker S1 priced at 1 million yuan and the Tianyi 2.0 from the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center priced at 350000 yuan.

Transitioning from the 'most capable' to the 'most useful' robot

Although robots are much smarter this year, there are still occasional incidents of robots dancing, falling while working, and not following their commands, and there is still some distance to fully integrate into people's lives. So how can we make robots more user-friendly and practical, and what challenges still need to be overcome?

Cai Jizheng, Director of the Robotics and Intelligent Manufacturing Industry Bureau of Beijing Economic Development Zone, said that currently, the speed of robot updates and iterations is very fast. "Taking this year's world's first humanoid robot half marathon race as an example, in August last year, we found that no company's robot could complete the race with the technical ability at that time. After just six months, in April this year, six teams of robots completed a 21 kilometer race in three to four hours." Cai Jizheng believes that robots entering households require further technological iteration and rapid updates, considering not only the safety and comfort of robots, but also the interaction between humans and robots. From these aspects, there are overall deficiencies in the technology and related capabilities of enterprises.

From the on-site reporter's observation of the robot's price, it can be seen that the price of robots is not yet affordable, with most costing tens of thousands of yuan or more. Zhao Xing, the chief scientist and co-founder of Xinghai Map, believes that the bottleneck for robots entering households is not price, but the key lies in breakthroughs in intelligence. "We can now make very beautiful robots, but it is challenging to let them work and autonomously complete tasks in a closed loop. When we have such ability, I think it is the time to discuss entering households

Xiong Youjun, General Manager of Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, stated that the innovation center is promoting the transition of embodied intelligence from pursuing extreme sports capabilities as the "most capable runner" to supporting complex scene system level applications as the "most useful". To address the challenges of autonomous learning, fully autonomous navigation, and cross ontology generalization capabilities in industrial applications, the Innovation Center will release innovative technologies such as embodied world model system, embodied multimodal large model, humanoid robot fully autonomous navigation system, and cross ontology VLA model at the Robot Conference. These technologies have enabled heterogeneous multi ontology collaborative work in complex scenarios, thus promoting a new chapter in the large-scale application of embodied intelligence.

In addition, Cai Jizheng believes that for the general public, it is necessary to gradually accept the process of robots entering households. "People are more likely to accept pets such as cats and dogs, but as a member of the family, how to truly make people accept or recognize robots, and how to integrate and coexist with robots in the family, is also a process for the general public." He invited the public to attend the Robot Conference and experience the latest technology. "I believe that robots will become a part of the family, which can be achieved in the near future

Beijing Yizhuang opens nearly a thousand real scene data collection points

Beijing Yizhuang is the permanent venue for the World Robot Conference and an important robotics industry cluster in Beijing. From a policy perspective, how can Yizhuang truly bring embodied intelligent robots into thousands of households and serve various industries? At this year's World Robot Conference, Beijing Yizhuang launched the embodied intelligent society experimental plan. Wang Lei, Director of the Beijing Economic Development Zone Management Committee, introduced that Beijing Yizhuang has opened up nearly a thousand real scene data collection points in Yizhuang New City, including supermarkets, hotels, pharmacies, hospitals, logistics warehouses, etc., to open up high-value, standardized, and tradable embodied intelligent data, serving the training of embodied intelligent models and the improvement of ontology intelligence level in the entire industry. Wang Lei said, "The first batch of 20 embodied intelligent training fields and nearly a hundred locations will officially open this month

At the same time, a robot secondary development community will be established around the sharing of innovative achievements in robotics, software and hardware integration collaboration, application scenario expansion, and industrial ecosystem cultivation. This community will provide developers with free universal robot ontology, research and development space, computing power subsidies, agile development, and other essential support, encouraging innovation teams to conduct secondary development for specific application scenarios. In addition, we have taken the lead in laying out pilot production factories for humanoid robots, providing services such as technology conversion, process improvement, type testing, and small-scale trial production.

Currently, Beijing Yizhuang has implemented over a thousand robot applications in factories, schools, hospitals, parks, and other settings. How to accelerate the implementation of products? The experimental plan for embodied intelligent society is clear. Beijing Yizhuang will deepen the innovative application plan for 10000 robots, gradually releasing the demand for 10000 embodied robots worth nearly 5 billion yuan in the next two years, including over a thousand humanoid robots. The application scenarios cover high-end manufacturing, education and teaching, parks and waterways, industrial parks, commercial services, medical and health care, power inspection, municipal management, community property and other key social and economic fields.

Wang Lei introduced that Beijing Yizhuang has formulated several measures to promote the innovative development of embodied intelligent robots, which proposes to invest 200 million yuan annually to provide policy support around software and hardware technology innovation, data element pilot testing, application scenario promotion, and cultivation of new business chains. Among them, 8 policies, including rewards for data collection training fields, support for secondary development communities, "sampling coupons," sales subsidies for humanoid robots, and support for supply chain response platforms, are the first of their kind in China.