In recent years, the embodied intelligence industry has entered a phase of accelerated growth, with its market scale expanding at an exponential rate. China has achieved globally recognized accomplishments in the field of embodied intelligence, realizing a series of scientific and technological innovations and breakthroughs. On September 20, 2025, the National Manufacturing Power Construction Forum convened in Hefei, centered on the theme “Embodied Intelligence Drives the Construction of a Manufacturing Power.” The event brought together numerous academicians, experts, and prominent industry representatives who engaged in in-depth exchanges and discussions, offering recommendations to steadfastly advance the high-quality development of the manufacturing sector. This forum highlighted the critical role of embodied intelligence in transforming manufacturing processes, with embodied robots emerging as pivotal physical embodiments of this technology, bridging the gap between virtual intelligence and real-world actions.
- Policy Anchors the Direction
Since the initiation of the “14th Five-Year Plan,” China’s manufacturing power construction has attained historic milestones, driving new industrialization to deeper and more substantive levels. The 2025 government work report marked a significant moment by including “embodied intelligence” for the first time in the list of key future industries to cultivate, positioning it alongside cutting-edge sectors such as bio-manufacturing and quantum technology. This inclusion signifies the formal elevation of embodied intelligence to a national strategy. As the core载体 that transitions artificial intelligence from “virtual computing power” to “physical action,” the embodied intelligence industry and its applications are demonstrating robust development potential, entering an acceleration phase from technological breakthroughs to capital influx and scenario implementation. The strategic focus on embodied intelligence underscores its importance in fostering new quality productive forces, with embodied robots serving as essential tools for physical integration into industrial environments.
What is embodied intelligence? Embodied intelligence refers to artificial intelligence endowed with a physical “body,” representing an interdisciplinary frontier at the intersection of AI and robotics. The value of embodied intelligence lies in enabling “intelligence” to evolve from “speaking” to “doing,” thereby genuinely integrating into the real physical world. Its application scenarios are expanding from industrial domains to daily life, healthcare, disaster relief, and beyond. As a bridge between artificial intelligence and the physical world, embodied intelligence technology can transform manufacturing equipment into industrial intelligent entities and upgrade industrial workers into decision-making executors, accelerating the deployment and empowerment of AI technology in actual production settings. Under the dual impetus of policy guidance and market drive, China’s manufacturing sector is leveraging embodied intelligence technology to rapidly construct new quality productive forces, with embodied robots playing a central role in automating complex tasks and enhancing operational efficiency.
The September 20, 2025 National Manufacturing Power Construction Forum in Hefei, Anhui Province, served as a pivotal platform, gathering government leaders, academic experts, enterprise representatives, and other stakeholders to focus on the forefront trends of embodied intelligence and consolidate strength for advancing new industrialization. Multiple guests provided perspectives from dimensions such as policy orientation, technological breakthroughs, and industrial practices, outlining a clear blueprint for China’s manufacturing industry to move towards high-end, intelligent, and green development. Discussions emphasized how embodied intelligence, through embodied robots, can drive sustainable growth and innovation in manufacturing, aligning with national goals for technological self-reliance and global competitiveness.
Looking ahead to the “15th Five-Year Plan” period, enhancing scientific and technological innovation capabilities and increasing high-quality supply in forward-looking fields are imperative. Efforts will be made to promote the optimization and upgrading of the industrial structure, coordinate the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries, the cultivation and expansion of emerging industries, and the prospective layout of future industries, implement the manufacturing digital transformation action, the intelligent manufacturing project, and the “AI+” action. Elevating the modernization level of industry governance and fortifying the security foundation for applications like embodied intelligence are also crucial, ensuring that embodied robots and related technologies are deployed safely and effectively across various sectors. The continuous policy support for embodied intelligence reflects a long-term commitment to integrating advanced AI into the fabric of manufacturing, with embodied robots expected to become ubiquitous in smart factories and supply chains.
- Technological Breakthroughs Forge Ahead
Zhou Ji, Director of the National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee and former President of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, emphasized that from now until 2035, it is a critical period for China’s manufacturing industry to achieve the transition from large to strong, as well as a key era for qualitative, efficiency, and dynamic transformations in manufacturing development. This will be realized in two stages: the first stage is digital transformation, and the second stage is intelligent upgrading. The integration of embodied intelligence into these stages is essential, as it enables seamless interaction between digital systems and physical operations, with embodied robots acting as the executors of intelligent commands in real-world environments.
The deep integration of embodied intelligence with manufacturing consistently permeates the top-level design logic of national strategy. From the introduction of the “Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots” and the “Implementation Plan for the ‘Robot+’ Application Action” in 2023, to the inclusion of “embodied intelligence” in the government work report this year, embodied intelligence has gained unprecedented momentum. Under the drive of a series of policies, embodied intelligence is accelerating its development, with embodied robots becoming more sophisticated and capable of handling complex industrial tasks. These policies have catalyzed investment in research and development, leading to advancements in embodied intelligence that are reshaping manufacturing paradigms.
Su Bo, Vice Director of the National Manufacturing Power Construction Strategy Advisory Committee and former Vice Chairman of the Economic Committee of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, stated that intelligent manufacturing, as the core technology of the new technological revolution and the main technical path for the innovative development of manufacturing, is the central driving force for the high-quality development of manufacturing. The “15th Five-Year Plan” period is a crucial time for the high-speed development of AI and intelligent manufacturing innovation applications. It is essential to continuously advance the “AI+” action and promote intelligent manufacturing from demonstration and promotion to a new stage of popularization and development in key industry backbone enterprises. Embodied intelligence, particularly through embodied robots, is at the heart of this transformation, enabling adaptive and autonomous systems that enhance productivity and reduce human error in manufacturing processes.
The strategic positioning at the national level continues to upgrade, regarding embodied intelligence as a “key variable” in building a manufacturing power. The 2025 government work report emphasizes the continuous promotion of the “AI+” action, explicitly requiring breakthroughs in key technologies such as intelligent perception and adaptive control, and driving resources to tilt towards the main battlefield of manufacturing. The strong policy tailwind for embodied intelligence stems from technological leaps and is inseparable from the “two-way奔赴” of policy and market. This synergy has accelerated the adoption of embodied robots in various industrial applications, from assembly lines to quality control, where they demonstrate the practical benefits of embodied intelligence in improving precision and efficiency.
Li Peigen, Director of the National Intelligent Manufacturing Expert Committee and Professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology, systematically reviewed trends in the foreign industrial embodied intelligence field,核心 covering humanoid robot applications, the integration of AI and robotics, key technology support, and industry status and trends. Li Peigen indicated that current industrial embodied intelligence applications are emerging, but spatial, physical, and temporal reasoning need improvement. In the future, multi-modal fusion and the construction of basic technologies and platforms will become important directions. Embodied robots, as a subset of embodied intelligence, are evolving to handle more dynamic environments, with research focusing on enhancing their cognitive abilities and physical dexterity. The progress in embodied intelligence is driving innovations in embodied robots, making them more versatile and capable of collaborating with humans in shared workspaces.
As the strategic cornerstone of information perception, sensor technology is becoming the “technology source” of intelligent technology. China has achieved international parallel running in the field of intelligent micro-system technology, independently developing design toolchains for intelligent micro-systems and completing breakthroughs in key process standardization. The sensor industry chain and supply chain exhibit characteristics of long chains and multiple links. You Zheng, Vice Chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, Party Committee Vice Secretary and President of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, stated that the market size of the sensor industry itself accounts for about 10% of the industry that sensors can drive and catalyze,被誉为 an industry that “uses four ounces to move a thousand pounds” (leveraging minimal input for maximum output). Regarding sensor development, he proposed three strategic paths: deep integration of industry and education to foster interdisciplinary talents and original technological breakthroughs; reasonable layout emphasizing the importance of public platforms due to the widespread distribution of sensors; and market-driven approaches focusing on regional characteristic application scenarios to drive technological iteration and cultivate industrial ecosystems. Sensors are critical for embodied intelligence, as they provide the sensory input that enables embodied robots to perceive and interact with their surroundings, thereby enhancing their autonomy and functionality.
The image above illustrates advanced embodied robots in an industrial setting, showcasing their integration into manufacturing processes. These embodied robots exemplify the practical application of embodied intelligence, where they perform tasks with precision and adaptability, contributing to the evolution of smart factories. The development of such embodied robots is a testament to the progress in embodied intelligence, highlighting how physical embodiments of AI can transform traditional manufacturing into highly efficient, automated systems. As embodied intelligence continues to advance, embodied robots are expected to take on more complex roles, from logistics to maintenance, further solidifying their importance in the manufacturing landscape.
- Deep Integration with Industry
In this long-distance race to cultivate new quality productive forces, embodied intelligence, as a forward direction in the AI field, is transitioning from technological verification to practical application and deeply integrating into various实体 scenarios, demonstrating broad potential for industrial innovation. The development of embodied intelligence is an inevitable outcome of long-term accumulation, supported by deeply integrated innovation ecosystems of industry-academia-research-application across regions. Embodied intelligence is evolving from point applications in specific scenarios to systematically reshaping manufacturing production models, industrial organization, and global layout. Under policy promotion and technological support, manufacturing enterprises are transitioning from “scale efficiency” to “innovation efficiency,”催生 flexible production, intelligent clusters, and other new industrial forms. Embodied robots are at the forefront of this transformation, enabling scalable and customizable solutions that cater to diverse industrial needs.
Practical explorations at the local level exhibit “clusterization and differentiation” characteristics, creating “testing grounds” for industrial landing. Beijing took the lead in releasing the “Embodied Intelligence Technological Innovation and Industry Cultivation Action Plan (2025-2027),” proposing to cultivate 50 core enterprises in the industry chain and launch 50 mass-production products within three years, achieve 100 large-scale applications in scientific research and education, industrial and commercial, and personalized service scenarios, and build a thousand-billion-yuan-level industrial cluster. This plan emphasizes the role of embodied intelligence in driving regional economic growth, with embodied robots being a key component in achieving these targets through their deployment in various sectors.
Shenzhen, with “industrial scale” as its core goal, outlined in its “Embodied Intelligence Robot Technological Innovation and Industry Development Action Plan” that by 2027, it will cultivate 10 enterprises with valuations of hundreds of billions of yuan, 20 enterprises with revenues exceeding tens of billions of yuan, land 50 application scenarios of tens of billions of yuan scale, and gather over 1200 industry chain enterprises. The focus on embodied intelligence robots highlights the city’s commitment to leveraging embodied robots for industrial automation, where they can perform tasks ranging from assembly to inspection, thereby enhancing productivity and reducing costs.
Shanghai released the “Embodied Intelligence Industry Development Implementation Plan” on August 6, proposing the “hundreds” goal: gather hundreds of industry backbone enterprises, land hundreds of innovative application scenarios, promote hundreds of internationally leading products, and drive the core industry scale to break through 50 billion yuan. This initiative underscores the importance of embodied intelligence in fostering a competitive manufacturing ecosystem, with embodied robots serving as critical assets in achieving these milestones through their integration into smart manufacturing lines.
Wang Qingxian, Governor of Anhui Province, stated at the forum that Anhui actively embraces opportunities in transformation, regarding the development of embodied intelligence as a key grasp for promoting high-quality manufacturing development and serving national strategy.面向未来, Anhui will continuously focus on key technology攻关, accelerate the integration and innovation of technology and industry, build systematic, full-stack technology攻关 networks, excavate and promote demonstration application scenarios, construct a “government-industry-university-research-finance-application-service” fusion interaction mechanism, form an innovation ecosystem of “four-chain integration,” and provide fertile ground for the growth of new technologies, models, and industries. The province’s efforts in embodied intelligence are expected to drive the adoption of embodied robots in local manufacturing, contributing to regional development and national strategic goals.
Wang Qingxian noted that in 2024, Anhui Province’s scale以上 industrial enterprise revenue was approximately 5.5 trillion yuan, jumping from 12th place nationwide in 2020 to 6th place nationwide. The “informatization and industrialization integration” indicator leaped from 15th place nationwide to 6th place. The high-quality development index of manufacturing ranks 6th nationwide, with the structural optimization index ranking 2nd nationwide. Emerging industries accumulate momentum and future products accelerate layout, with a batch of industrial clusters represented by new energy vehicles, integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and robots growing stronger, and the output value of industrial strategic emerging industries accounting for the proportion of industrial total output value ranking 3rd nationwide. The integration of embodied intelligence, through technologies like embodied robots, has been a significant factor in these achievements, enabling Anhui to enhance its manufacturing capabilities and compete on a global scale.
The following table summarizes the key targets set by major cities in their embodied intelligence development plans, highlighting the emphasis on embodied intelligence and embodied robots as drivers of industrial growth:
| City | Plan Name | Key Targets by 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Beijing | Embodied Intelligence Technological Innovation and Industry Cultivation Action Plan (2025-2027) | Cultivate 50 core enterprises in the industry chain; launch 50 mass-production products; achieve 100 large-scale applications in research and education, industrial and commercial, and personalized service scenarios; build a trillion-yuan (CNY) industrial cluster. This plan focuses on advancing embodied intelligence through embodied robots in diverse settings. |
| Shenzhen | Embodied Intelligence Robot Technological Innovation and Industry Development Action Plan | Cultivate 10 enterprises with valuations of hundred billion yuan; 20 enterprises with revenues exceeding ten billion yuan; land 50 application scenarios of ten-billion-yuan scale; gather over 1200 industry chain enterprises. The plan specifically targets embodied robots as a key area for growth in embodied intelligence. |
| Shanghai | Embodied Intelligence Industry Development Implementation Plan | Gather hundreds of industry backbone enterprises; land hundreds of innovative application scenarios; promote hundreds of internationally leading products; core industry scale to break through 50 billion yuan. Embodied intelligence is central to this initiative, with embodied robots playing a vital role in achieving these targets. |
With the continuous improvement of the policy system, the ongoing enhancement of technological capabilities, and the in-depth expansion of application scenarios, embodied intelligence will persist with long-term effort, injecting powerful momentum into the construction of a manufacturing power. The relentless advancement in embodied intelligence ensures that embodied robots will become increasingly integral to manufacturing operations, driving efficiency, innovation, and sustainability. As China continues to prioritize embodied intelligence in its national strategy, the collaboration between policy, technology, and industry will foster an ecosystem where embodied robots thrive, ultimately contributing to the realization of a robust and globally competitive manufacturing sector. The journey of embodied intelligence is set to redefine manufacturing paradigms, with embodied robots at the core of this transformative era.