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Chinese humanoid robot firms shift focus to intelligent systems
Chinese humanoid robot companies are shifting focus from physical design to developing intelligent systems, as investors emphasize advances in robot “brains.”
Shenzhen-based Dobot announced it has delivered its third batch of mass-produced Atom robots, which now feature a self-developed vision-language-action model.
This model allows Atom to respond to real-world uncertainties, understand ambiguous instructions, and make autonomous decisions, moving beyond preprogrammed routines.
Dobot previously deployed Atom in a Shenzhen cinema to serve popcorn.
Meanwhile, UBTech recently open-sourced its large multimodal AI model, Thinker, designed for humanoid robots, claiming it outperforms competitors in benchmarks and achieves high accuracy in factory tasks.
The Chinese robotics industry is experiencing rapid growth, with shipments of humanoid robots increasing nearly 5x in 2025, driven by a focus on AI-driven capabilities.
Experts note that developing robust foundational models and acquiring physical-world data remain key challenges for the industry.
🔗 Source: South China Morning Post
🧠 Food for thought
Implications, context, and why it matters.
China’s humanoid strategy is built on industrial precision and aggressive pricing
- Robot “brains” also support a pricing push. Dobot’s Atom costs about US$27,500 (199,000 yuan) per unit, which may beat some Western rivals and speed up uptake in cost-sensitive industries 1.
- Atom has appeared in demos serving popcorn. Dobot also pitches it for factory work such as high-voltage operations and printed circuit board (PCB) inspection, with a claimed precision of ±0.05mm 2.
- “Mass-produced” needs caution. Many large Chinese robotics orders take the form of framework agreements or intention orders, not firm purchase contracts, while limited production capacity still slows the industry 3.
The race for embodied AI is reshaping global manufacturing and tech platforms
- More attention on robot “brains” signals an industrial shift. Advances in AI and hardware now support General-Purpose Mobile Manipulation, meaning robots that move around and handle objects in less-structured settings 4.
- National policy also shapes the field. Embodied intelligence appeared in China’s 2025 “Government Work Report” and came up again in the “15th Five-Year Plan” proposal approved by the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee 3.
- UBTech plans to open-source its Thinker model, which could spark a platform fight. Some robotics companies may build vertically integrated robots where one company controls most of the hardware and software stack, like Tesla. Others may focus on standardized components, AI models, and operational services within a shared ecosystem 4.
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