Humanoid resources: China's robots search for workforce breakthrough - Japan Today

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Humanoid resources: China's robots search for workforce breakthrough

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By Rebecca BAILEY HANGZHOU, China

A horde of schoolchildren watched excitedly as a diminutive humanoid tour guide named Wuji welcomed them to a robot school in eastern China, gesticulating theatrically as it described the institute's aspiration to train the mechanical workforce of the future.

A steady buzz is growing around China as advanced robotics emerges as the next frontier of the global AI boom, encompassing both investor enthusiasm and alarm from rivals such as the United States.

Hundreds of companies took part in the World Robot Conference in Beijing on Wednesday, the same day national champion Unitree made its much-anticipated stock market debut. ### Tech race

Beijing's strategic investment has not gone unnoticed.

In July, Washington banned the import of foreign humanoids and quadruped robots on national security grounds, effectively opening up a new front in the tech war.

China's advantages lie in manufacturing scale, supply chain integration and cost competitiveness, said Counterpoint Research's Ethan Qi, while the United States is "much stronger" on software and cutting-edge research.

AFP contacted multiple Chinese companies to ask for reaction to the ban, including main exporters Unitree, UBTECH and Agibot.

None replied, but industry insiders and analysts downplayed the effect on the overall sector. The school will issue qualifications confirming a machine's ability to do a specific role -- "much like a human's graduation certificate", said Zhao.

Robots are popping up more in everyday life in China, with trial jobs including directing traffic, cleaning houses or working on factory floors.

Aside from hardware issues, large-scale deployment requires gathering huge amounts of data -- the real-world equivalent of the online content large language models train on.

At one training company visited by AFP, humans holding what looked like PlayStation controllers repeated a single task -- folding clothes, moving blocks, spraying a canister -- as humanoid partners mirrored their actions.

Generally, an employee told AFP, a usable model required tens of thousands of hours of data.