China’s humanoid robot revolution is no longer science fiction – it’s happening now. From Shenzhen’s first 6S robot store and cutting-edge research labs to leading robotics companies in Shanghai and Hangzhou, we meet the pioneers building machines that can walk, talk, fold laundry, stock supermarket shelves, and even box.
Featuring insights from Dr. Liu Shaoshan, Unitree Robotics, and AgiBot, this episode explores embodied AI, robotic hands with human-like dexterity, and the race to bring humanoids into factories and eventually into our homes. The question is no longer whether they will enter our world, but when.
#RazorInChina #RiseOfHumanoids #ChinaInnovation #Humanoid #Robots #AgiBot #Unitree #ChinaAgenda2026
Featuring insights from Dr. Liu Shaoshan, Unitree Robotics, and AgiBot, this episode explores embodied AI, robotic hands with human-like dexterity, and the race to bring humanoids into factories and eventually into our homes. The question is no longer whether they will enter our world, but when.
#RazorInChina #RiseOfHumanoids #ChinaInnovation #Humanoid #Robots #AgiBot #Unitree #ChinaAgenda2026
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NewsTranscript
00:04oh slightly scared nice to meet you unitary robot you've got to be polite to them because
00:10when they take over they'll remember who was nice to them
00:43the hype around humanoid robots has never been greater this is a secret space where we train
00:51and incubate our intelligent robots but behind the spectacle a fundamental question remains
01:00can human-like robots learn to navigate a world designed for humans as well if not better than we
01:08do here in china the future's being built in real time and nowhere is that clearer to see
01:17than the race to build robots that can walk talk and interact with the world just like us
01:23i'm here to explore how far that tech has come and meet the next generation of humanoid robots
01:37china aims to be a global leader in humanoid robotics and it isn't leaving this to chance
01:43the government has a national plan to build a world-class industry by 2027
01:52to track this roadmap my journey starts in shenzhen china's answer to silicon valley
02:01a city where ideas move from blueprint to production at lightning speed
02:08few people understand the ecosystem better than dr lu shoshan a robotics expert who's showing us where
02:15innovation meets the high street where are we headed we're going to the success shop it's a full-blown
02:23robotic shop here in china and when you say robotic shop we're talking about a place where you can go
02:28in and see robots and you can buy you can try you can rent you can just have the robot
02:34dance for you for
02:35to attend rmb and and this is the world's first ever first ever wow so here we are with a
02:42robot coming out to greet us
02:43yeah we have a kid oh fun hello robot nice to meet you can i shake your hand hi yep
02:49and already drawing a huge crowd
02:52we've come to play soccer let's see if they've got any skills yep
02:59i see this generation they grow up with robots yeah although they still seem very excited by seeing
03:05them yep that was really cool the 6s store is like a car showroom for robots where customers can
03:14experience cutting-edge technology and can tailor humanoids for their own needs so they sell all kinds of
03:21robotic products here from toys to piano playing robots i think here's the only robotic 6s shop in china
03:33right now but uh as people see its success i think they're gonna replicate this kind of shop around the
03:38country i don't think the shop's main purpose is to make money it's coming in see the robot dance
03:48they get used to it so in the future the real product come in they don't fear those products
03:54okay so actually you think the real point of this is to demonstrate what they can do yes
04:04what else do they have in this 6s humanoid store
04:10robot coffee machine we cannot tell whether it's made by human or machine that's an impressive thing to
04:16say oh it's froth the milk i mean that looks like barely impressive froth milk let's see first time
04:21i see it as well you've not seen this this happen before either yep there you go no way look
04:28at that
04:28oh that's you and me huh that's the two of us oh a robot cup of coffee with our picture
04:34printed on it
04:34wow oh it's a good cup of coffee this really is the future you want to try the skeleton absolutely
04:43i
04:43want to try it it makes a mountain climbing after this let's start walking okay if you feel anything
04:51i can feel it almost kind of terminator style actually moving my legs for me
04:55to go faster yep i might speed through a wall it's right
05:05you're a superhuman i feel like a superhuman in this yeah
05:09the 6s store is a fun introduction to robots as consumer ready products but to better understand
05:16the technology driving them and why china is moving so fast dr liu invites us to his research center
05:24the lab it's called ai and robotics for society in china the vision is in future cities that will be
05:31filled with robots to complete different tasks ah what do we have here so we have uh some real life
05:37humanoid robots can i take a closer look yeah let's take a closer look it is very sci-fi
05:45what is this robot able to do well for example electricity if you send a person to operate the
05:51electricity box of high voltage electricity it's quite dangerous but if it were a robot to operate in
05:57those environments and we don't worry about human lives in just a sentence that sounds like a fairly
06:02simple thing to do but in order to operate anything to do with electricity you need to have the
06:05dexterity of your hands to use tools you need to be able to think through problem solve how are you
06:11able to train a robot to do all of that you raise a very very good point it's a full
06:15-blown innovation
06:17in both software and hardware i think one of the reason that china is innovating that fast is these
06:23big companies or electricity companies and so on so forth they are willing to try even when the
06:28technology was not mature yet it will give you a lot of chances to try and see how far you
06:33can get
06:34this might seem like a silly question but why do you need it to be a humanoid robot to do
06:38this work
06:38our world is designed for humans to operate in so i think a humanoid form factor is the most generic
06:45form of form factor every business in the world if they can grow it's because they can achieve economies
06:52of scale for a small form factor robot for a special purpose you cannot achieve economy scale that means
06:58the cost will remain very high for a long period of time but then if you do these form factors
07:03say
07:03if we sell a million of them then the price will drop immediately that's why i think a humanoid
07:09in a way it's the right way to go and scale is exactly what china is aiming for we're speaking
07:17here
07:18in shenzhen what makes this such a hub for robotics and for innovation in the robotic sector why here
07:25if you know the history of shenzhen a lot of great company actually from shenzhen
07:29whether it's internet with this mobile phone whether it's cars shenzhen has always been the most
07:35innovative city in china like the silicon valley of china this thriving landscape creates an environment
07:43primed for robotic innovation because of the intelligent electric vehicle revolution in china
07:50that's happening in the past say a decade or so we can pretty much recycle a lot of components that
07:56use in cars uid has the battery technology and the car making or manufacturing technology
08:02huawei has the hardware sensing technology the hobby is here and tensen definitely has the
08:07software advantage if you combine them it's enough to make a very good robot ecosystem
08:15what are some of the key challenges the robotic industry is facing when it comes to
08:19making these humanoid robots available in every home in every workplace what's missing
08:26currently is the mystery in the system the large language model the computing chips
08:32once the the mystery is completed then you see the whole loop is complete
08:36you have the component we have the system then we have the customers
08:42china's push into humanoid robots is no longer theoretical
08:49it's already being played out on the world stage in the summer of 2025 beijing hosted a spectacle
08:56the world's first humanoid games among the standout performers was robotics company unitary and i've been
09:05invited to the firm's hangzhou base to meet their world famous robots just check the motion as
09:12they walk across the room and stands by itself and is able to balance which is something that is
09:22technologically very difficult to do and yet yep it's walking across the room
09:37this one is called p1 but it's so impressive to watch it do that
09:44i can see that there is another far bigger one here yeah tell me about this model this one is
09:49called
09:49h1 and it's toward a 1.8 meter and weight about 50 kilometers so it's really heavy can i see
09:56it move
09:57yeah yeah okay it's moving
10:01the way this one walks it's not quite so human like why is that oh because this one is the
10:08first
10:08generation but we keep updating keep improving so that one is our second generation and the port is
10:16about 1.3 meter right okay so this is an example of how you've been able to develop these humanoids
10:22over time why smaller and lighter why does that matter oh like h1 and g1 have a different purpose
10:27like h1 is more applied in the factory such as the car factory and this one is more applied in
10:34the
10:34robotic research why do they need them to be smaller in order to do that it's more flexible and more
10:41easy to
10:42handle to do the development because they can base on this the platform and to explore the different
10:48scenario and also the price for the g1 is more accessible for the researcher right okay so how much
10:54would one of these cost for somebody to buy and now it's starting at a 16 000 dollars okay i
11:01need to keep
11:01saving while seeing these humanoids has long been on my wish list i wasn't prepared for just how close we'd
11:10get
11:12slightly scared make sure that i'm out of the way wow i'm already drawing a real crowd of people
11:25wanting to see it too cool as much as this is really fun to watch happen is there more to
11:37this than just a
11:38bit of a gimmick what are they learning from boxing each other after the extreme environments such as
11:44the punching kicking the robot can still maintain his balance why is mobility such an important factor
11:51with robots because we want the rubber to get into the factory or entry of the family in the future
11:57so the movement is the foundation
12:02how are they doing this is this programmed or is this acting almost autonomously like the punch and cake
12:09i have the algorithm inside the robot but finding the balance is controlled by itself so it's teaching
12:18itself how to find balance yeah that's incredible so you want to try the box with the robot definitely want
12:26to try and box with the robot okay is there anything i need to be careful about when i'm boxing
12:29a humanoid
12:30robot be careful just be careful it doesn't get me thank you good luck thank you i think i'm gonna
12:38need it
12:43round one of me getting beaten up okay you ready oh please don't happen oh oh okay
12:56oh i need to give it a harder punch because it's actually quite sturdy when you punch it
13:01and it can really correct itself wow okay
13:12my terrible technique aside this might look like a bit of fun but it's actually training stress testing
13:18balance control and recovery the basics a humanoid needs to work safely around people
13:28oh it's solid it really hurts your hand
13:33yeah let's try head oh i think i've broken it
13:40sorry robot please don't come back and get me oh wow well i think um we can say it's a
13:47draw well done robot
13:53fresh from my first and hopefully last bout with a humanoid i'm stepping out of the ring to find out
13:59how machines like this are trained to be more human-like and that brings me to shanghai home to a
14:07company
14:07that's just made humanoid robot history in late 2025 agibot entered the guinness world records completing
14:16the longest autonomous walk ever achieved by a robot covering more than 100 kilometers over three days
14:24but agibot isn't just building headline grabbing humanoids it's also training them in real world
14:31environments using large-scale data and learning systems to help them adapt to complex everyday tasks
14:39and that's exactly what we've come to see first hand how about that you arrive at the agibot showroom
14:45and you're met with none other than a humanoid robot hello hello hi
14:51do you speak english my name is luca a robot from agibot how are you doing
14:59all right well nice to meet you bye then no worries
15:06a traditional welcome of sorts
15:14that is incredible so many toys to play with here tactile sensor on a robot hand this really is the
15:24future
15:29well done guys beyond the polished showroom we've been given rare access to a special training
15:37facility where the real work is happening dr yaomo ching leads agibot's embodied intelligence unit
15:45this is a secret space where we train and incubate our intelligent robots can i take a look around can
15:52you
15:56show you around here we have robots folding t-shirts different kinds of teachers from different star
16:02points wow nowadays the robots can learn to do things human can do but the learning process requires tons
16:10of data the data includes all the sensor inputs for example the cameras four sensors as well as all the
16:18actuator controls i can see a person the human being by the looks of it controlling what it's learning
16:25to do here okay yes these guys are we call tally operators so they use vr headsets and joysticks to
16:32kind of remotely control a robot and help them to complete a certain task once we have a huge amount
16:41of such data we will upload it to a data center where they can consume the data and train some
16:47embodied intelligence foundation models and robots can use those models to do all kinds of these
16:54works autonomously so this is like a robot school you're giving them the training that they can then
16:59go on to use themselves using what you've described as embodied ai what does that mean
17:04embodied intelligence yeah so for the past maybe 10 years we see huge progress in artificial intelligence
17:13but this all happens in the digital space right now those intelligence capabilities can go beyond the
17:22digital space into our physical world and enable and empower those robots to do things we human used to do
17:32embodied intelligence means giving ai a body and forcing it to learn through trial error and experience
17:39just like we do so here we have some housekeeping if you have a messy desktop the robots need to
17:48understand the environments for example put the snacks into a plate and put trash into the trash bin
17:55we see two uh people right instead of one as we saw before so one person tried to make some
18:02disturbance during the process and the purpose is to make it even more difficult for the robots to complete
18:12so here what they are doing is called a data annotation and the data qualification what does that mean what
18:18does that mean let's take a look at here so after the teleoperators collect the data the data will
18:25be uploaded to the cloud and those annotators will check if everything's okay that means all the sensor
18:34data are complete you are not dropping frames the camera's field of view are located and all the actuator
18:42the motor control signals are recorded correctly so this is essentially in the school analogy the
18:48teachers checking the robots homework in future will you need the number of human beings currently in
18:53here to train the robots or will it be robots training robots um i think as we have more and
18:59more data
18:59and better and better foundation models the amount of data needed to train robots to do a very specific
19:07task will be less and less because foundation model has something called a few shot capability that means
19:13if you have a very strong foundation it only requires very limited amount of new data
19:19data to adapt to new environments for unseen new tasks wow and then they'll really take over can we
19:26take a look in some of the other spaces there's so much going on in this facility this is a
19:31mock-up
19:31of the home environment so this is where people are most interested in people want robots to enter their
19:40home and do all the household works for them yes how far away are we from this actually being a
19:46reality
19:46how quickly can i get one of these in my home is what i'm really asking so i think maybe
19:52three to
19:52five years to let the robot be well trained to complete all these tasks and at the same time be
19:59safe enough and cheap enough for all the consumers to buy it yeah and i'm noticing there's a real theme
20:06here with the types of tasks your robots are doing from commercial to domestic it's a lot of tasks that
20:12most of
20:12us don't really want to do is that the current usage model you see for the robots you're creating here
20:18yes yes we want robots to boost the overall productivity of our society first we will try to
20:26deploy the robots in factories those are more controlled environments and the tasks are usually
20:33well specified secondly i think they will start entering some semi-controlled environments like shops
20:41grocery stores right and sometimes there will be customers in the store and then i think eventually
20:48they can be a good worker in the home so they can help you to do tedious daily works that
20:55makes me very
20:56sad that the home is coming last on this list next let's take a look at the supermarket you have
21:02a
21:02supermarket and a robot training facility yes we are trying to train them to do a restocking
21:08ah which is what we can see here yeah it's very challenging work because there are many kinds
21:14of different drinks the robots need to be able to identify to understand and also they need to be put
21:21in their corresponding locations right so training the robot not just to pick up different sized objects
21:27but know where to place them where to place it okay one thing i've noticed with a lot of these
21:33robots is
21:33although they do look kind of human-like they don't have the dexterity of human hands but i have spotted
21:39something on the other side of this room that has got hands can we go and take a look oh
21:44yeah let's go
21:47what's happening here yeah so for previous ones we saw robots with two finger grippers this robot is
21:55equipped with five fingers just like us and i can see your colleague here training it they are wearing
22:02a special glove to control the hand movement so this robot was actually has human-like hands and the
22:10training here is about being more precise in terms of what it can do with those human hands but i
22:16can't
22:16help but wonder human hands ours are capable of lots of different things how tricky is it to replicate
22:22that in humanoids yeah human hands probably have more than maybe 20 degree of freedoms we can make all
22:31kinds of patterns and manipulations right but in order to do so many degree of freedoms you have to
22:36install a lot of motors inside so that makes the size of the hand the weight of the hand and
22:43also
22:43the price of the hand very challenging right and it's not just the movement that's quite complicated
22:49with human hands we're also able to sense to touch to know how much we can hold something in a
22:55really
22:55delicate way versus hold on to it tightly how tricky is it to replicate that in humanoid robots yeah so
23:01we
23:02have a new generation of hand we call the omni hand pro so we have tactile sensors on the fingertips
23:08and
23:08on the on the palms and also some force sensors inside each of the joints so that the robot hands
23:16can
23:17sense very delicate tactile feelings right wow when they contact with the objects is this the holy grail of
23:26robotics building hands on robots that are just like ours yeah this is the holy grail okay well i have
23:32to
23:32ask can i have a chance to try and help train this robot to use its hands yes yes have
23:37a seat thank you
23:39okay so i'm just putting these on like i would a glove there okay it's not every day you get
23:47to wear
23:47robotic gloves yes and train a robot to use its hands like we do okay hands up yeah keep like
23:55that okay
23:56now you can start move slowly okay let's try and pick something up see if you can pick up a
24:03straw
24:04oh great job training the robot to pick up your tail in here
24:12what is this actually teaching the robot beyond it being very very cool
24:19what is this teaching the robot why is it important that the robot has this level of dexterity yeah
24:28because for many of the tasks we are facing in the daily life they require multi-finger cooperation to
24:37handle very small objects so during this process we are teaching the robot to do a so-called closed loop
24:44control to see the environments and to plan the movement of each fingers and most importantly the
24:51fingers need to yeah cooperate with each other to finish the task this is much trickier it's very
24:59tricky yeah that's really cool
25:04when we're talking about the next generation of robots entering the workforce the real world
25:09how challenging is it to teach a humanoid robot to learn about the world they're in so the most
25:16challenging part for robots learning is the lack of data robots need perception data and the motion
25:24control data those we cannot acquire from the internet we have to deploy robots into the real world
25:31and use all kinds of techniques to collect the data from their scenarios what does the next decade look like
25:38for humanoid robots with embodied intelligence over the next decade i think they will be more naturally
25:45and smoothly integrated into our daily life we can communicate interact with those robots in just
25:52natural language as we talk to human beings right so they can understand our open questions understand
25:59our intent our vague instructions and finish what we ask them to do does that mean that we're going to
26:05have robots sometime in the near future who are actually more intelligent than human beings yeah i think
26:11that's uh highly likely does that make you fearful or excited for the future i think i'm more excited
26:18about that because i think robots will still be very useful and controllable products for us yeah
26:28is there really more to this technology than just being a bit gimmicky because it certainly looks
26:33and sounds really cool is this going to be transformative yeah robots can work 24 hours seven days a week
26:41right and also they always have a very good mood like a client yeah so it's very consistent right consistency
26:49is actually very important for manufacturing you don't want to this batch of products and that batch of
26:56products have different level of quality right so robots are the perfect workers in that sense
27:02should i be worried for my job will a robot be standing here in 10 years time interviewing you or
27:08in
27:08fact a robot who's running this company um this is a very likely to happen in the next decade
27:16but i will be very very happy if robots can do such a complicated task okay future yeah
27:26in china the rise of this technology is no longer a distant dream the question is no longer if
27:33humanoids will enter our world but when we've seen humanoids capable of doing more and more in recent
27:40years what keeps you up at night when you think about their development as a human society for the past
27:45or tens of thousands of years the very basic fabric is the connection between people
27:53now you insert something in between my kid growing up maybe talking to a robot more compared to talking
27:59human human what's the meaning for society do we integrate robot as part of the society or
28:08is it an invader that actually keeps me up at night how about what excites you most about the future
28:15of humanoid robots i don't need no one to take care of me and when i get old that there's
28:20a robot to
28:20handle all my chores so i i i don't have to worry at all and and do you see that
28:25realistically happening in
28:27your lifetime that having a humanoid robot in your home will become as commonplace as owning a smartphone
28:34if you think of the first generation of iphone suddenly hit some point it's ready boom it goes
28:41exponential into another air robotics like that now it needs better hardware better wiring better
28:48software but one day when all these components come together then suddenly you'll see a robot a
28:53breakthrough robot they can accomplish a lot more tasks my personal projection with the current
28:57innovation pace in china i think five to ten years we'll see that moment as humanoid robotics moves
29:05from the lab to the real world perhaps the question we should be asking is if humankind is ready to
29:12make
29:12room for something entirely new
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