Shenzhen expo competition showcases potential of robotic urban governance

Chinese-developed robots designed for urban maintenance tasks demonstrated their advanced capabilities at Shenzhen City's Community Service Robot Exhibition on Saturday.

The event, as part of the "Intelligent Sharing for the Future - Nanny Robot Conference" organized by China Media Group (CMG), featured competition demonstrations and displays of new technologies and achievements.

The competition segment tested the operational capabilities of sanitation robots across a range of scenarios. Some were able to steadily climb steep slopes, while others bent close to the ground, precisely collecting scattered leaves and debris.

"I didn't expect cleaning robots to adapt to so many complex scenarios and terrains. If they can be widely deployed, they could solve many challenging problems and reduce corresponding risks and dangers," said Liang Zile, a student at Shenzhen Institute of Information Technology.

The competition attracted over 40 sanitation robot enterprises from across China, competing in 115 sessions. The event simulated more than 40 real-world scenarios replicating daily urban operations and established 88 specialized assessment points to comprehensively evaluate the robots' practical capabilities.

Similar robot competitions will take place at branch venues in cities of Qingdao and Suzhou in east China to fully showcase the innovation achievements and application scenarios in the robotics sector.

The event also connected studio, community and enterprise settings, allowing attendees to directly experience the achievements of artificial intelligence (AI) sanitation technology, accelerating cutting-edge technologies and promoting the large-scale application of AI in the sanitation sector.

Currently, Shenzhen's Longgang District, which hosted the event, is actively opening its doors to attract upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, establishing a complete industrial ecosystem from core components to terminal applications that has currently connected over 300 domestic AI and robotics enterprises.

Cities including Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Wuxi and Suzhou have also successively introduced specialized support policies to promote the rapid development of the sanitation robot industry. The latest estimates indicate China's intelligent sanitation market service potential exceeds 100 billion yuan (about 14.1 billion U.S. dollars).

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced Wednesday it had launched the 89th wave of Operation True Promise 4, carrying out strikes against U.S. and Israeli targets in the region.

The IRGC said in a statement that Iran and various resistance fronts, through coordinated operations, used heavy missiles, attack drones, and rockets to strike U.S. military bases and Israeli targets.

The statement said the operation targeted Israeli military facilities and assembly points in Eilat, Tel Aviv, Bnei Brak, and other locations, and claimed that, according to local sources, it had caused significant Israeli casualties.

The IRGC also stated that it had hit a location in Bahrain housing 80 U.S. troops, and Iranian ballistic missiles struck a U.S. helicopter formation at a base in Kuwait, destroying one helicopter and damaging others.