Shanghai AgiBot, in operation for just a few months, has already produced 1,000 humanoid robots in 2024, and is expected to reach an annual production of several thousand by 2025, according to the company.

At the Data Collection Center of AgiBot, 100 humanoid robot “apprentices” work alongside data collection specialists in real-life scenarios such as restaurants, milk tea shops, and family homes.

Engineers assemble various parts of humanoid robots in order and conducted tests on Feb. 18, 2024 at AgiBot in Shanghai. (Photo:China News Service/Tang Yanjun)

The robots conduct tasks like making drinks, laying tablecloths, ironing clothes, and making the bed. They imitate daily human movements, collecting over a thousand pieces of operation data per day.

Yao Maoqing, executive director of AgiBot Robotics Research Institute, stated that the action data collected from these robot “apprentices” will be uploaded to a cloud for model training. Through generalized learning, a universal model will be formed and deployed on every robot.

Yao highlighted that robots are improving logistics operations with automated warehousing systems and intelligent packaging.

The future of human work will turn to robot scheduling and solution development, freeing them from repetitive tasks, he added.

China’s humanoid market boasts great potential. Morgan Stanley recently released a list of the top 100 publicly listed companies in the global humanoid robot sector, with 37 Chinese companies making the cut. According to the Chinese Institute of Electronics, the domestic humanoid robot market is expected to reach approximately 870 billion yuan ($119.44 billion) by 2030.