Walked a total of 50,000 steps, first-hand on-site insights from IFA 2026: Over 1,000 Chinese manufacturers have set a new historical record, and Physical AI has strongly sparked great enthusiasm among international visitors.

Robots and AI are penetrating real-world scenarios, with Chinese enterprises targeting the unique demands of overseas markets.

Authors | Li Shuiqing, Chen Junda

Editor | Xinyuan

ZhiDongXi on-site report from Berlin, September 5: On September 4, IFA 2026, the world's oldest consumer electronics exhibition, the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin, officially opened. The ZhiDongXi team arrived at the venue and walked nearly 50,000 steps to collect full first-hand insights from this year's exhibition.

Stepping into the exhibition hall, the humanoid robots, AI refrigerators, AI washing machines, AI glasses and AI headphones that greet visitors immediately make people realize that this year's IFA is becoming more and more "AI-centric". And still standing at the forefront of this transformation are a group of Chinese manufacturers.

According to our statistics, a total of 932 enterprises from Chinese mainland participated in this IFA. With the addition of enterprises from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, the total number exceeds 1000, accounting for more than half of all exhibitors, hitting an all-time record. Looking around the venue, Chinese conversations can be seen almost everywhere.

Especially in the IFA Next pavilion, Chinese robot enterprises almost occupied the entire area collectively. Unitree, Agibot, ExRobotics, Fast Motion, Origin Robotics and other brands all brought their humanoid robots to the show, making the number of humanoid robots reach the highest level in IFA history.

How about the feedback? European audiences vote with their actions. Many of them interacted with the robots in person, and some even tried to climb over the guardrail to "fight a few rounds" with the robot performing spinning kicks. Products that can provide lying-down massage, allow users to walk with exoskeletons, or offer haircut services are generally more popular than conversational AI products that only bring "spiritual excitement". Physical AI interaction precisely hits their excitement points.

At the same time, AI is exploring new access points. AI phones, AI pendants, AI bracelets, AI pets, AI exoskeletons, and AI glasses are appearing in clusters. Although there are fewer gimmicks compared with CES events, these products are getting closer and closer to real life scenarios.

Large home appliance manufacturers are still the highlight of IFA. TCL, Hisense, Changhong, Haier, and Midea all launched full-scenario AI solutions, with their pavilions covering thousands of square meters, almost equivalent to booking the entire venue. Xiaomi, which participated in IFA for the first time, also made a grand appearance. Our reporter saw their overwhelming advertisements as soon as they got off the plane. Xiaomi's Mijia brand announced its official large-scale entry into the European market during the IFA period.

AliExpress under Alibaba made its debut at IFA for the first time, with nearly 30 Chinese overseas brands coming to its booth for group photos, gathering leading players in tracks including large home appliances, cleaning robots, smart homes, and AI hardware.

Consumer electronics giants such as Lenovo and Samsung did not participate in the exhibition directly, but held independent launch events in Berlin at the same time. Lenovo exhibited its full "AI PC portfolio", with scroll screens and flip screens appearing one after another. The laptops equipped with NVIDIA RTX Spark chips can run hundred-billion-parameter models locally. These new types of PCs once became hot topics during the IFA period.

It can be seen that after a century of development, IFA has evolved from a radio exhibition to a technology stage for physical AI and humanoid robots. And Chinese manufacturers are transforming from product sellers to category definers.

01

Berlin Robot "Parade":

Humanoid Robots Break into Consumer Electronics

All Main Players Are Chinese

The scale of the humanoid robot exhibition stage at this year's IFA is the largest in IFA history, and the leading players among them are undoubtedly Chinese manufacturers.

Unitree's booth is located in a prominent position right at the entrance of IFA Next, with a fighting stage built in the center, and robots equipped with dexterous hands demonstrating fine operations next to it. The robots are "capable of both literary and martial performances", surrounded by layers of overseas audiences.

Not far away, ExRobotics also made its first appearance at IFA. Its full-size humanoid robot T800 is 1.73 meters tall, and demonstrated actions such as dragon punch, spinning kick, and rapid reset after falling on site. With a torque output of 450N·m, its comprehensive physical performance is said to have reached or even exceeded that of an adult male of the same size. Many foreign visitors tried to climb over the guardrail to "fight a few rounds" with it. This proves one thing: high-performance robots will always attract audiences.

▲ ExRobotics T800

The Agibot booth also attracted huge crowds. The Tai Chi performance of the A3 robot, the A3×LinkSoul interactive photo experience, the A2 robot demonstrating traditional Chinese calligraphy, the G2 industrial autonomous material handling robot, and the OmniHand dexterous hand, which are familiar to Chinese audiences, attracted many foreign visitors to watch and interact.

Fast Evolution brought a football field to the IFA venue, demonstrating AI autonomous football confrontation on site, completing position running, stealing, shooting, and self-recovery after falling without remote control. Its flagship humanoid development platform Booster T2 also made an appearance.

Qiyuan Robot, the consumer-grade embodied intelligence brand under Agibot, focuses on user-friendliness. Its two products Q1 and T1 won two official IFA awards, and its customized robot made its debut at IFA for the first time. Leading tech blogger Linus made his classic IP image into a Mini-Linus themed robot, showing new ideas for an open and customizable ecosystem.

▲ Qiyuan Robot

Origin Robotics under LeXiang Technology brought the Bridge "Xiaoqiao" Geek version, which was just released on September 2. This robot is claimed to be the world's first 10,000-yuan high-performance humanoid robot, with a pre-sale price of 8888 yuan. It supports backflips, dancing, jumping, opens teleoperation and motion capture interfaces, and can also be connected to VR devices for control.

▲ Origin Robotics

Pudu's new generation of humanoid intelligent working partner PUDU D7 made its European debut on the same day, and won the IFA Innovation Award issued by the official IFA. On-site visitors can interact with it, ask it to help get items, and even take photos with it.

XPeng also brought its humanoid robot Iron to Europe this time, but only for static display. The staff at the booth told us it was an empty shell.

Xiaomi's robot CyberOne made its first overseas appearance and interacted with the audience on site.

ChenXian Technology focuses on "one embodied brain adapting to multiple robot bodies". At this IFA, it demonstrated a dual-arm humanoid robot playing a Yamaha electronic keyboard, showing its dual-arm coordination and precise force control capabilities.

WanAn Robot exhibited the onero humanoid robot, which is mainly oriented to household scenarios such as laundry.

Midea opened a humanoid robot demo in its pavilion. This robot is serving popcorn to users, but its movements are slightly slow.