On May 8, the 27th China Beijing International Science and Technology Industry Expo officially opened at the National Convention Center. The "electors" of the first and second place in the Beijing Robot Marathon - Tiangong 2.0 and N2, as well as Walker S1, which "entered" the world's most factories, appeared at the Science and Technology Expo, which attracted widespread attention and became a powerful witness to the booming development trend of my country's humanoid robot industry.

  Since the beginning of this year, humanoid robots have frequently appeared in various scenes such as the Spring Festival Gala stage, sports arena, exhibition booths, and workshops, which shows the popularity. As an outstanding representative of cutting-edge technological innovation in the integration and innovation of cutting-edge technology such as artificial intelligence, precision mechanical engineering, and bionic materials, humanoid robots can quickly and effectively adapt to changes in the external environment with their human-like perceptual interaction capabilities, body structures and movement methods, stand out in the wave of technological development, and are recognized as another disruptive product after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles.

  The humanoid robot industry is one of the representative areas for the development of new quality productivity. It is not only entering a period of rising development, but also becoming a new high ground for scientific and technological competition, a new track for future industries, and a new engine for economic development. It has the characteristics of great development potential and broad application prospects. In recent years, my country has attached great importance to the innovative development of the humanoid robot industry. Data shows that in the first quarter of this year, my country's industrial robots and service robot production reached 149,000 and 2.604 million units, an increase of 26% and 20% year-on-year respectively. Some institutions predict that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of my country's robot industry will grow to about 400 billion yuan. Looking around the world, my country has applied for a total of 6,618 humanoid robot technology patents, surpassing Japan, South Korea, the United States and other countries, ranking first in the world.

  At the top-level design level, the introduction of a series of policies has also played a role in protecting the innovative development of the humanoid robot industry. This year's "Government Work Report" clearly mentions the cultivation of "embodied intelligent" industries for the first time. While clarifying the development goals, documents such as "Implementation Plan for the New Industry Standardization Pilot Project (2023-2035), "Guiding Opinions on Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots", and "Implementation Opinions on Promoting Future Industrial Innovation and Development" have made systematic arrangements for the development of humanoid robots and their industries. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong and other places have also issued relevant action plans to increase the innovation and development of the humanoid robot industry.

  Anchoring to strengthen scientific and technological innovation unswervingly, focusing on enhancing design capabilities and integrating industrial chain innovation chains is the key to promoting the high-quality development of my country's humanoid robot industry. This involves the continuous improvement of technological maturity to ensure that stability and reliability can be maintained in large-scale production; at the same time, we should think about how to further optimize the production and manufacturing process, reduce costs, improve production efficiency, and make the products more competitive in the market; we should also pay attention to the cultivation and expansion of the market, deeply understand the needs of different industries and consumers, and develop application scenarios and product functions that meet market needs. For example, there are more than a thousand mobile operating robots in manufacturing links such as aerospace and semiconductors; explosion-proof industrial robots have large-scale applications in manufacturing links such as rail transit equipment; surgical robots assist in completing complex remote surgery... Each landmark breakthrough represents that humanoid robots are achieving profound industrial transformation from "science fiction" to "reality", and are accelerating their implementation in all walks of life, allowing people to experience the "future has come."

  Of course, we must also realize that my country's humanoid robot industry has a certain foundation in the early stage, but there are still shortcomings and weaknesses in key basic components, operating systems, complete machine products, leading enterprises and industrial ecology. In the future, if domestic humanoid robots really enter thousands of households, we need to continue to make efforts in promoting the accelerated evolution of key technologies, expansion of application scenarios and improvement of industrial ecology. Including in terms of technical research, we will further improve the innovation system, gather strength from all parties to accelerate the innovation process, promote breakthroughs in a number of key technologies such as "brain", "cerebellum" and "limbs", and comprehensively consolidate the foundation for the development of humanoid robots. In terms of integrated applications, we highlight scenario traction, and carry out the application exploration of humanoid robots in special fields, manufacturing, people's livelihood and key industries, and accelerate the pace of humanoid robots moving from laboratories to industries. In terms of industrial development, we will strengthen the cultivation of humanoid robot enterprises with ecological dominance and global competitiveness, deepen the coordination between industry, academia and research, promote industrial agglomeration and development, and enhance the resilience of the humanoid robot industry chain and supply chain. In terms of security governance, we will strengthen the technical guarantee capabilities and institutional mechanisms for data and key software and hardware security of humanoid robots, actively respond to various real and potential risks, and promote the improvement of security capabilities.

  We have reason to expect that with the continuous advancement of technology, more advanced and practical humanoid robots will accelerate their entry into various practical scenarios of production and life, jointly drawing a picture of harmonious coexistence between humans and robots, so that shape robots can serve a better life for humans.

  (Author: Lei Zhenwen, a researcher at the Institute of Industry and Information Technology Rule of Law, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics)

[Editor in charge: Zhu Jiaqi]