How far are humanoid robots from our lives?
Beijing, August 16 (Xinhua) -- On the first day of the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games, five gold medals were awarded. The humanoid robots demonstrated their abilities in various competitions such as group dance, 1500 meters, martial arts, 400 meters, and material sorting, which attracted continuous admiration from the audience present.
From the robot Yangge Dance that swept the internet in early spring this year to the current humanoid robot sports event, in just a few months, humanoid robots are evolving towards higher levels. The rapid development of the robotics industry has raised the question of how far humanoid robots are from our lives?
On August 15th, a humanoid robot from KURA team (first from the left) and a humanoid robot from RoboFEI team participated in a 3V3 football match. Photo by Ju Huanzong, Xinhua News Agency reporter
This sports meet is a comprehensive competition of humanoid robots, as well as a comprehensive competition of key components.
This is a 'limit test' of the latest level and application capabilities of the humanoid robot industry, drawing on the form of human competitive sports, "said Li Yechuan, director of the Intelligent Equipment Department of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology." If a year ago, the vast majority of humanoid robots did not have the ability to participate in comprehensive competitions. Thanks to the rapid progress of artificial intelligence algorithms, robot performance and other technologies, this robot sports event would have been possible
The "Ten Potential Application Scenarios of Humanoid Robots" released at the recent 2025 World Robot Conference depicted the future prospects of humanoid robots in various industries, including "industrial general operations: loading, unloading, and transfer handling", "power production: power station operations", "home services: life assistance, companionship, and daily care", etc.
On August 15th, a humanoid robot from Yushu Technology team competed in a 1500 meter race. Photo by Ju Huanzong, Xinhua News Agency reporter
Chen Jianyu, founder and CEO of Xingdong Era, stated that current humanoid robots can not only perform jumping, dancing, and other actions, but also perform tasks such as logistics sorting, folding clothes, and screwing. As AI gradually penetrates into various terminals, humanoid robots will have more powerful and versatile operational capabilities, which will undoubtedly bring about a revolution in social productivity in the future.
Behind the hype of this sports meet, 'cold thinking' is equally important.
It is widely believed in the industry that the intelligence level of humanoid robots has greatly improved in the past one or two years, but it still requires some time and patience to truly adapt to human production and living environments, move towards large-scale applications, and even thousands of households.
——The universality, generalization ability, and safety of humanoid robots need to be improved. Lu Cewu, co-founder of Qiongche Intelligence and vice dean of the School of Artificial Intelligence at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, stated that current humanoid robots have practical application skills for certain scenarios, but still lack universal skills. For example, robots can perform one-time grasping well, but sustained actions such as peeling melon skin are relatively difficult.
On August 8th, a robot demonstrated its ability to grab objects at the World Robot Conference exhibition hall. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Xie Han
Xiong Rong, Chief Scientist of Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, stated that the robustness, modeling ability, and generalization ability of humanoid robots still need to be further improved. The human environment, especially the home environment, is not a standardized scenario and has significant uncertainty and complexity. Only when the generalization and safety of robots are improved, can they enter households to do most of the household chores.
——The industry has not yet truly achieved technological convergence, and further standardization is needed for software and hardware. Chen Jianyu, founder and CEO of Xingdong Era, stated that there has been a phase of technological convergence in the industry, such as end-to-end big models and reinforcement learning based big motion control, but convergence has not yet been fully achieved. This also means that companies will continue to invest heavily in research and development in the future, seeking better technological paths.
Wang Xingxing, founder, CEO, and CTO of Yushu Technology, believes that the important factors limiting the scale application of humanoid robots currently include the need to improve the architecture of robot models or embodied intelligence, and the lack of mass production of hardware. The future requires lower cost hardware and computing power
On August 6th, at the world's first embodied intelligent robot 4S store (ROBOT MALL) located in the Robot World of Beijing Economic Development Zone, the audience shook hands with a humanoid robot. Photo by Ju Huanzong, Xinhua News Agency reporter
——A large amount of real physical data is lacking, and the cost of data acquisition is high. For the large-scale application of humanoid robots, the physical data generated by interaction with the human environment is particularly important. Due to the fact that virtual simulation data can be quickly obtained at a lower cost, most of the training data for robots at present is mainly based on virtual simulation data, and real physical data is relatively lacking, "Chen Jianyu said." Next, a lot of effort will be needed to collect physical interaction data through robot applications, and questions such as' where are the specific scenarios' and 'what are real, high-value application scenarios' need to be considered
Industry insiders predict that humanoid robots will achieve faster scale applications in industrial and commercial service scenarios, ultimately enabling humanoid robots to enter households. Once the commercialization model is implemented and the software and hardware evolve to a certain level, engineering and scaling will be accelerated.
In the next 3 to 5 years, the autonomous capabilities of humanoid robots will be significantly improved, gradually achieving large-scale applications in multiple scenarios, "said Xu Xiaolan, Chairman of the China Electronics Society. In the future, the technological development of humanoid robots will focus on collaboration and standardization, and through the establishment of unified labeling standards and sharing mechanisms, efficient flow of cross scenario data resources will be achieved.
The industrial application of humanoid robots is currently showing strong potential, moving from technological breakthroughs to the "acceleration zone" of scene implementation. Only by using it first and truly implementing the scenario, can the industry flourish and further promote technological iteration and upgrading, "said Xiong Rong.
Many industry experts also consider that safety is an important factor in achieving a future life of human-machine integration. This requires establishing a safety certification identification system, making safety one of the mandatory standards for humanoid robots, and proposing different specific standards in different application scenarios.
The current humanoid robots still look like cold and mechanical machines, but in the future they may be closer to human form and truly enter the era of human-machine collaboration, "said Xu Xiaolan.
Information source: Xinhua News Agency
