China initiates world's first ISO international standard for humanoid robot datasets

China has successfully initiated the world's first international standard in the field of embodied intelligence - Humanoid Robot Datasets, in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), said Standardization Administration of China (SAC) on Friday.

In the meantime, China also saw the establishment of the first working group within the organization convened by a Chinese expert, according to SAC.

Wang Zhenlin, head of the China Mirror Committee of the ISO Technical Committee 299 (Robotics), highlighted the significance of the two milestones for China.

"Most of the discourse power in the field of robotics is in the hands of developed countries. In the past, we often followed other countries' standards and remained in a passive position, simply adapting to international rules. This time, we have achieved two historic breakthroughs. The first breakthrough is filling the gap in formulating international standards for humanoid robots. The second is helping establish a working group for international robot standards," he said.

The newly approved international standard project draws on the content of China's standard for humanoid robot datasets, which is currently under development.

Experts from major countries around the world will join hands to participate in the development of this standard as well as other standards in the field of humanoid robots.

"If we compare humanoid robots to humans in the learning process, then datasets serve as their 'textbooks' and 'exercise banks.' Robots are not born with the ability to work or walk; all their skills are acquired through learning. Only through thousands of demonstration cases can they gradually master skills. In essence, a dataset records various multimodal data from the robot's or a human's learning and task-performing processes," said Wang. These data mainly include environmental perception data, ontology state data, and demonstration data from human beings. In the development of humanoid robots, the datasets play the key role of foundation and underlying rules.

"We want to inform research and development institutions around the world how to collect, store, and label datasets for humanoid robots. We often boast of advanced algorithms and excellent hardware, but without strong data support, everything is mere empty talk," said Wang.

China initiates world's first ISO international standard for humanoid robot datasets

A Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman on Friday lashed out at Japan's latest sharp increase in defense budget and planned revision of defense equipment transfer principles to allow the export of lethal weapons, urging the country to make a clean break from militarism.

It was reported that the Japanese parliament has enacted a record-high budget for fiscal year 2026, featuring a defense expenditure of 9.04 trillion yen (about 58 billion U.S. dollars), exceeding 9 trillion yen for the first time. Reports also indicate that the Japanese government is planning a significant revision to the implementation guidelines of its "Three Principles on Transfer of Defense Equipment and Technology," which will allow the export of lethal weapons.

Speaking at a press conference in Beijing, Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, the spokesman, said in response, "Various signs have shown that the Japanese right-wing forces are stepping up efforts to push the country's security policy to shift toward a more offensive and expansionist direction. Their acts gravely violate the [1943] Cairo Declaration, the [1945] Potsdam Proclamation, the [1945] Japanese Instrument of Surrender, and other instruments with legal effect under international law, gravely go against Japan's own Constitution and existing domestic norms, and pose a serious threat to the post-war international order and regional peace and stability."

"Japanese militarism once inflicted untold suffering on the region and beyond, yet there has never been a proper reckoning with it after World War II," Zhang said.

Now, the Japanese side has completely torn off its disguise and accelerated its pace of re-militarization, which cannot but arouse strong concern and condemnation from the rest of the world, the spokesman said.

"We urge the Japanese side to stop its retrogressive moves and make a clean break from militarism. Otherwise, it will lose the trust of its Asian neighbors and the rest of the international community," he said.

China urges Japan to break away from militarism