The 2026 World Robot Conference opened in Beijing on Wednesday, displaying the latest technological advancements in the global robotics industry.
A highlight of the annual event is the launch of the Global Robotics Application Exploration Program. The initiative will connect leading robotics manufacturers with top-tier innovation teams, encouraging the sharing of mass-produced robots, including humanoids, quadrupeds, and dexterous robotic hands, for free real-world trials to accelerate commercial adoption.
Alongside the conference, a robot consumer festival will also be held. For the first time, the festival will feature a "Robot Shopping Street," where robot chefs will serve the visitors while they shop.
The conference comes as China's robotics industry continues to gain global prominence. Chinese companies accounted for nearly 70 percent of global quadruped robot sales in the first half of 2026, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.
"In the first half of this year, revenue of major robotics firms reached 165.5 billion yuan (over 24.5 billion U.S. dollars), up 24.5 percent. We will zero in on core components and embodied intelligence, bridge research with production, and speed up tech upgrades through large-scale application in new scenarios," Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xin Guobin said at the opening ceremony of the conference.
The five-day event has brought together over 300 exhibitors, a 69-percent increase from last year, who are presenting more than 3,000 exhibits across four pavilions covering robotics applications in manufacturing, health care, retail, and emergency rescue, among other areas.
2026 World Robot Conference opens in Beijing
2026 World Robot Conference opens in Beijing
The 2026 World Robot Conference opened in Beijing E-Town on Wednesday, bringing more than 3,000 exhibits, with one tenth of them premiered.
Running for five days, the event has drawn over 300 exhibitors, up 69 percent from last year, and more than 60 activities are on agenda.
"We have built a 600-square-meter immersive zone with several hundred products on display. We designed scenarios like a cyber training camp, a real-life industrial park, and a future-life house to show innovative applications of robots. Visitors can even remotely operate the robots on their own and experience the latest robotic technologies," said Fang Pei, procurement and sales head at JD Embodied Intelligent Robotics.
Apart from the larger scale, the exhibition at this year's conference shifts more from individual robot skills to scenarios of their working applications.
At the booth of a Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, the robot Tiangong, once a "marathon runner" in previous robot marathon competitions, performs various jobs. Controlled through large models, Tiangong can carry goods, conduct quality inspections, and do other work.
In a household scenario, Tiangong can execute orders of users like finding sausage and putting in into a designated container.
"The general trend shows that the industry is now shifting the focus from robot bodies, its motion and manufacturing to its intelligence and ability to working in the real world," said Xiong Youjun, general manager of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center.
The expansion of the exhibition scale aligns with the sector's rapid growth as a whole. According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China's industrial and service robot output rose 28 percent and 11.9 percent year on year in the first half of 2026, respectively. Chinese-developed quadruped robots now account for nearly 70 percent of global sales, with more than 400 domestically-built humanoid robot models, over half of the world's total.
World Robot Conference features real-life applications
