The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) officially inaugurated its International Institute for STEM Education in Shanghai on Sunday, establishing it as the first Category 1 center established by the agency in the Asia-Pacific region.
The institute, which focuses on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), is the 10th Category 1 center globally under UNESCO's framework.
Its main functions include promoting STEM education across all stages from early childhood to adulthood, with a focus on providing inclusive, equitable, relevant and high-quality STEM education for all.
"This is a Category One institute of UNESCO. That means that it has full autonomy, but it's very much a global scope. So we do think that at the time where STEM is the ground for any other important step from AI to quantum technology, to having here this new center, can really meet the demand, the global demand," said Stefania Giannini, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Education.
"Shanghai is an incredibly important international hub for science, technology, universities, higher education, education system and innovation. There is an ecosystem for innovation. So we see it, as UNESCO, as an ideal place to establish an institute which is supposed to become a global hub for improving the quality of education, training, learning and also research in the STEM field," she said.
The center aims to leverage China's practices in STEM and interdisciplinary education to promote the joint development and sharing of global high-quality STEM education resources through international joint research, policy dialogue and training.
"As an institute, it can gather information from around the world, making it easier for us to access the latest global developments and explorations in STEM education. It also provides a platform for China to share its practices, experiences, philosophies, and new models with the international community," said Qin Changwei, Secretary General of the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO.
China's first UNESCO Category 1 Center established in Shanghai
Honor's humanoid robot, Lightning, which swept the 2026 Beijing E-Town Humanoid Robot Half-Marathon on Sunday, is a natural extension of years of accumulation in consumer electronics technology, said its developers.
A leading smart device provider in China, Honor independently developed the model, which dominated the podium at the event as it was used by all three teams whose autonomous navigating robots ran the fastest times.
At the Honor factory in Pingshan District in Shenzhen City, south China's Guangdong Province, where robotics engineers developed Lightning. They said the robot's body design incorporates a simulation system that, through artificial intelligence algorithms, can iterate nearly 30,000 design schemes of varying sizes over three months. Complete and mature systems are also in place for battery, communication, and reliability verification.
"We built a simulation lab from scratch. For the robots, we digitize the entire design and put it into a computer. We have our own material library, which can meet the force, thermal, and chemical property demands for each component, under different environments and speeds. We've accumulated about 1000 kinds of materials. For example, if there's a risk with the robot's neck, we just need to change the material code from 001 to 002. Now, through our simulations, we only need one day to perform parallel calculations on 10 different designs, before creating a mold and verifying it in the lab," said Li Zheng, a senior engineer at Honor.
An autonomous robot capable of completing a half-marathon involves a complete industry chain, with core components including high-precision sensors, LiDAR, motors, operating systems, and control algorithms. The development of robotic marathoners have driven an increasing number of component enterprises to get involved.
Manifold, a tech firm established by newly-graduated PhDs, has developed a 3D spatial memory module, which can model an environment in real time and transform it into images that robots can understand. They said several robots running the half-marathon this year adopted their solution.
"Our device can operate within a one-kilometer tunnel with an error margin of only tens of centimeters. For robots, especially in the absence of GPS, this allows them to accurately determine their location. The underlying technology is a multi-sensor fusion technology that we developed in-house," said Qin Youming, CEO and founder of Manifold.
The Beijing Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center set up a training camp for the marathon event. Many university students came a month ahead of the event to develop and debug their technologies and algorithms based on open-source robot bodies, databases, and training platforms.
"These high-quality databases and highly open-source control algorithms are actually very helpful to us. We no longer need to build the house from the ground up, but can skip the most basic part," said Sun Jingyu, a student from Shandong University.
"Through this racing event, I believe we can make our robots more reliable and stable, while also supporting high-dynamic, high-load movements. This is crucial for robots' future application in both industrial, commercial and domestic scenarios," said Guo Yijie, head of the innovative humanoid department and the Marathon project of Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center.
Engineers share development story behind Beijing humanoid half-marathon champion model
