Chinese robot makers gather in Beijing trade fair as they push for mass adoption

More than 300 companies are showing products at a robotics conference in Beijing that runs until Sunday, exhibiting over 2,000 items and unveiling more than 150 new devices as Chinese robot makers push to move beyond pilot projects into mass commercial use.

The gathering comes as robotics emerges as a fresh front in rivalry between the United States and China, and investor appetite for the sector in China has hit new highs. Chinese firms on display are trying to convince buyers and financiers that the technology is maturing fast enough for wider deployment.

Startups, carmakers and fast-moving listings

Shares of Unitree, the best-known Chinese maker of humanoid robots, surged nearly six times on their Shanghai debut on Wednesday. After an IPO that retail investors oversubscribed by more than 8,000 times, the startup Lumos Robotics and the robotics arm of Chery Automobile (9973.HK) said they are considering stock market listings as well.

At the opening ceremony, Sin Guobin, deputy minister at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, pledged support for the sector, saying that robotics has already become "an important force" in China’s economic and social development.

Exhibitors showed machines built for everyday operational tasks. "Our most common application scenarios are in logistics," said Zhang Dapeng, assistant vice-president at industrial humanoid maker Leju, as his company demonstrated robots that move and sort crates and small items. He added that "large European factories, as well as domestic car plants, use our robots for work in their factories, whether it is moving boxes, loading small components or carrying out other tasks," and that their robots have achieved the same efficiency as a human worker.

Other demonstrations included a torso-equipped humanoid for parcel sorting shown by startup Robotera — a sales representative said the robots have continuous operating times of 900 to 1,000 hours and are about 85% as efficient as a human worker — humanoids from Dexfors packing mobile phones into boxes, a giant rideable robot horse, and UBTECH (9880.HK) displaying teaching robots capable of holding English lessons and monitoring university exam centres.

Industry figures say intense competition among a flood of new companies is helping drive technical progress. "A large number of companies (for robots) appeared almost overnight," said Zhang Guibing, head of AiMOGA Robotics, Chery’s robotics division, on the sidelines of the conference. "But, from the perspective of industry development, this has a positive side. It allows everyone to fully compete... In the end, this will help deepen the technology and capabilities of the industry. From that perspective, I think this is a good thing."

Global shipments of humanoid robots nearly quadrupled to 19,100 units in the first half of this year, with Chinese manufacturers dominant, according to Smart Analytics Global. Yet some analysts warn that between 50% and 70% of humanoids produced this year could end up in "data farms," used to collect training data rather than performing paid productive work for customers, a point raised by robotics analyst Georg Stiller.

Photo: LEM / Ferrari / Profimedia