The integration of embodied intelligence into China’s national strategy marks a pivotal advancement in artificial intelligence development. Following its inclusion in the 2025 Government Work Report, embodied robots—representing the fusion of AI with physical entities—have emerged as a critical component of China’s future industrial planning. Over 20 Chinese cities have explicitly prioritized embodied robot development, signaling nationwide commitment to this transformative technology.
Market projections underscore the sector’s economic significance. Current estimates indicate China’s embodied intelligence market surpassed 480 billion yuan in 2024. With anticipated breakthroughs in large-scale model technologies, this market is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2031. Professor Ma Lizhuang, Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and Vice President of its Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, emphasized the long-term potential: “Humanoid embodied robots will inevitably enter millions of households, creating incremental economic value reaching the ten-trillion-yuan level.”
Regional Development Strategies for Embodied Robots
Major Chinese cities are implementing concrete strategies to dominate the embodied robot landscape:
Beijing: Released the “Beijing Embodied Robot Technology Innovation and Industry Cultivation Action Plan (2025-2027),” targeting comprehensive domestic supply chain control by 2027. The capital aims to achieve breakthroughs in over 100 core technologies and cultivate an embodied robot industry cluster valued at 100 billion yuan. Liu Weihua, Deputy Director of the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission, stated: “Embodied intelligence represents a new high ground in technological competition, a new industrial track for future development, and a new engine for economic growth.” Beijing currently hosts approximately 2,400 AI-related enterprises—accounting for 40% of China’s total—including 36 unicorn companies representing over half of the nation’s total.
Suzhou: Recently unveiled innovation resources including eight specialized industrial parks, nine high-level innovation platforms, and thirty leading enterprises dedicated to embodied robots. The city’s ambitious roadmap targets 2027 for establishing a preliminary embodied robot innovation system. Key objectives include cultivating three enterprises with mass-production capabilities for complete embodied robots, achieving core industry scale of 10 billion yuan, and supporting an overall robotics industry valued at 200 billion yuan.
Shenzhen: Leverages its electronics manufacturing ecosystem to accelerate embodied robot development. Professor Li Xuejin, Party Secretary and Associate Vice President of The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen), noted: “Shenzhen’s comprehensive electronic manufacturing supply chain provides robust support for rapid hardware iteration of embodied robots. Technical expertise from leading enterprises in AI, motion control, and robotics can be seamlessly transferred to embodied intelligence applications.”
Industry experts caution against homogeneous development patterns, urging cities to identify specialized niches within the embodied robot ecosystem to prevent redundant investments and excessive competition.
Balancing Enthusiasm with Pragmatism
While embodied robots present unprecedented opportunities, significant technological hurdles remain. Professor Ma Lizhuang delineated varying maturity levels across robot categories: “Industrial embodied robots and autonomous vehicles have reached relative technological maturity. In contrast, humanoid embodied robots remain in their infancy, with numerous technical pathways still requiring laboratory exploration.”
He emphasized the foundational importance of data in embodied robot advancement: “Current AI technology remains data-driven. Understanding the scaling laws of embodied intelligence necessitates close collaboration between scientific communities and industries for in-depth research on hybrid data.”
Development challenges include:
- Uncertainty in core technical pathways for humanoid embodied robots
- Requirements for massive multimodal training datasets
- Integration complexities between AI cognition and physical actuation
- High research and development costs prior to commercialization
Transformative Future Applications
Beyond industrial applications, embodied robots are predicted to revolutionize social structures. Professor Ma envisions next-generation systems becoming advanced human-machine interfaces with natural interaction capabilities and high-precision recognition functions. “We can anticipate widespread deployment of nursing embodied robots, executive assistant embodied robots, and companion embodied robots,” he projected. “These technologies will not only replace human labor and enhance productivity but also reshape social and family structures, necessitating new ethical frameworks and legal regulations.”
The coordinated national effort positions China at the forefront of what industry analysts term “the next AI frontier”—where artificial intelligence transcends digital boundaries to interact physically with human environments. As municipal governments synchronize industrial policies with research institution capabilities, the embodied robot sector transitions from theoretical exploration toward tangible economic contribution. This strategic alignment between technological ambition and practical implementation may ultimately determine China’s competitiveness in the global AI landscape, with embodied robots serving as both economic catalysts and societal transformers.