Humanoid robots are having a moment in China. These popular machines are part of the country's strategy to bring artificial intelligence into daily life. Embedding the technology into physical systems — an idea called embodied AI — was a key facet of China's latest five-year plan, and companies there are already world leaders in humanoids.

The number makes it plain: nearly 90 percent of the more than 13,000 two-armed, two-legged robots delivered globally last year were made in China.

A day on the outskirts of Shanghai

The scene MIT Technology Review describes is that strategy's public-facing side. At a robot carnival held by an R&D center outside Shanghai, an 11-year-old boy shouts excitedly while watching his new mini robotic dog attempt a handstand. It is a public holiday, and curious families are pouring in.

The hub houses more than 100 companies that research, develop, manufacture and market robotic technologies. Many build specialized bots of all shapes that do practical tasks, such as transporting heavy loads or inspecting sewage pipes.

Today, though, things are mostly for show. Meters from where parents queue to buy the robotic dog, two staffers teach youngsters how to make a quadrupedal robot walk up a flight of stairs. Farther along, a tense battle breaks out between two remote-controlled robots firing water beads at each other as children cheer from around a temporary ring. A staffer declares the duel a draw.

Why the show matters

Showcases like this serve a purpose: they invite the public to experience robots up close. Some of China's most prominent robotics companies are building humanoids. These machines "can free people from physical work and mundane chores," says Yang Duan, a product manager at DexForce, which is exhibiting a model that makes coffee. A few booths down, a pair of robotic arms attempts to fold a basket of T-shirts.

Exposure matters because elsewhere humanoids' progress has been slow, marred by several obstacles:

  • Safety — their heft and the need to balance on two legs create risk.
  • Price — high cost limits appeal.
  • Battery life — short runtime constrains practical use.
  • Form — plenty of roboticists are skeptical that a human shape is the best one for a robot.

Hearts and minds

Chinese firms are pushing forward anyway and showing off their latest models. As this carnival takes place in Shanghai, shopping malls and tourist attractions in several other Chinese cities host humanoids performing for crowds. In Beijing, bipedal robots are running half-marathons.

The PR campaign seems to be winning, at least on this particular weekend in Shanghai. Applause rings out from the main tent: a humanoid wearing a blinged-out top is showing off drunken boxing while another performs a front flip to woo the crowd. Alongside the stage, a squad of small robotic lions waits its turn. The audience cannot get enough. They chant: "More, more, more."

Why it matters

This scene is less a product launch than an exercise in acceptance. The robots' technical problems — weight, balance, battery — are the kind engineering eventually solves. But a technology entering daily life does not depend only on whether it works; it depends on people agreeing to let it into their homes, workplaces and streets.

China is treating that second half as a separate job. The carnival, the half-marathon robots and the mall performances are not part of a technical roadmap but of habit-building. Regardless of what the robots can actually do, a generation is growing up that does not find them strange.