From dance floor to war: China readies humanoid robots for combat
In May 2025, the PLA issued a tender to purchase a humanoid robot, including installation and technical training. Four months later, a procurement notice that listed an NUDT email as its contact address sought an “embodied humanoid robot intelligent perc...
Key takeaways
- XPeng’s humanoid robot “IRON” has begun production lines in China, and the world’s first advanced general‑purpose model walked off the line on September 7, 2026, marking a move from prototype to volume manufacturing.
- The robot boasts 76 degrees of freedom, 21 in each hand, and up to 2,250 TOPS of computing power from three Turing AI chips, with mass production slated for the end of 2026 and commercial deliveries in 2027.
- China’s People’s Liberation Army has issued tenders for humanoid robots and conducted a June 2025 university competition that tested robots on tasks such as infiltration, target mapping, and base patrols, signaling a push toward battlefield roles.
- Meanwhile, the second annual World Humanoid Robot Games in China saw more than 2,000 participants, with robots breaking 100‑meter sprint and standing high‑jump records, though many machines also suffered crashes and malfunctions.
- XPeng’s robotics division raised over $900 million in a funding round, valuing the unit at more than $6.3 billion and underpinning its rapid scale‑up.
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In May 2025, the PLA issued a tender to purchase a humanoid robot, including installation and technical training. Four months later, a procurement notice that listed an NUDT email as its contact address sought an “embodied humanoid robot intelligent perception and dexterous operation system.”
The records contained few specifics. Reuters couldn’t determine whether the tenders were filled, and if so, which companies won or which robot models were supplied.
In June this year, the PLA budgeted about $300,000 for a system to collect and label camera, radar and motion data for humanoids, including information about terrain they could traverse, according to another military procurement document. A year later, NUDT explicitly framed humanoid robots as battlefield tools. A university competition in June 2025 featured an event that simulated “infiltration behind enemy lines,” requiring robots to enter an area, map it and locate targets, according to its website. Another envisioned robots conducting identity checks, discipline inspections and security patrols at military bases.
The military-research university described the competition in part as a proving ground for humanoids to eventually "move toward the battlefield."
Procurement records around that time reflected that ultimate goal. BEIJING, Sept 7 (Reuters) - At the World Humanoid Robot Games in China last month, robots jumped, boxed and danced. Some fleet-footed bots ran faster than Usain Bolt over 100 meters. Spectators cheered the machines’ improving capabilities and their meme-worthy stumbles.
Two days after the Games ended, the People's Liberation Army's official newspaper drew its own conclusions from the show. The PLA Daily called for researchers to accelerate the transfer of cutting-edge technologies from laboratories to military training grounds for robotic “combatants.”
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