State Grid first forged a partnership with Unitree, then China Southern Power Grid acquired a stake in the company. The two leading power grid giants have successively placed big bets on Unitree, and what they are scrambling for behind the tens of billions of yuan of procurement deals is the right to define the standards for embodied intelligence.

State Grid first launched cooperation with Unitree, then China Southern Power Grid took a stake in it. Behind the tens of billions of yuan of procurement in the power sector lie the labor shortage-driven demand and the scramble for the right to define industry standards.

In August 2026, Unitree Technology launched its IPO on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board. China Southern Power Grid Industrial Finance Holdings was allocated a stake worth about 136 million yuan as a strategic investor, appearing on the strategic placement list alongside PetroChina Kunlun Capital.

On September 22, China Southern Power Grid and Unitree Technology officially signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement in Guangzhou. Qian Zhaoyang, Chairman of China Southern Power Grid, and Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, witnessed the signing. The cooperation scope has been upgraded from "exploration" to "joint technology R&D, co-construction of application scenarios, joint formulation of standards, and integrated development of industry and innovation", with additional provisions on jointly exploring the international market.

From capital injection to strategic signing, the whole process took no more than two months. The layout of the power industry in embodied intelligence has shifted from "purchasing equipment for trial use" to "deeply binding partners and co-building the industrial ecosystem".

In fact, State Grid's contact with Unitree dates back even earlier. In September 2025, Hangzhou Power Supply Company of State Grid, Unitree Technology, Embodied Intelligence Base Company, and State Grid Zhejiang Huadian Research Institute signed a four-party framework cooperation agreement on "Power + Embodied Intelligence", with "standard formulation" explicitly included in the cooperation dimensions. A year later, China Southern Power Grid deeply bound Unitree through capital injection and strategic signing. Although the two power grid giants took different paths, their demands point to the same direction: participating in the definition of rules in the tens of billions of yuan procurement boom.

01

Capital Takes the Lead

Orders Are Only Delayed

China Southern Power Grid's contact with Unitree did not start on the day of the signing. In December 2025, Unitree won the bid for the "Multi-legged Intelligent Inspection Robot Type II" project of China Southern Power Grid Technology, entering the procurement system of China Southern Power Grid for the first time. In August 2026, China Southern Power Grid Industrial Finance Holdings appeared on the placement list of Unitree's IPO as a strategic investor. The two sides signed the Strategic Cooperation Memorandum in the same period, agreeing to deepen intelligent applications in power grid scenarios.

What is really worth noting is the role that capital plays in this round of cooperation. The 136 million yuan investment is almost negligible compared with the asset scale of China Southern Power Grid, but it locks in a 12-month shareholding period. China Southern Power Grid is not just making a financial investment, but also locking in a technical partner in advance.

There is another background that cannot be ignored for energy and power capitals to appear on Unitree's placement list at the same time. In June 2026, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission jointly issued a document, requiring central SOEs to select no less than 10 key scenarios to carry out real-scene training for humanoid robots, and form a 10,000-unit-level implementation capacity by the end of the year. The policy baton has been raised, and central SOEs need to deliver tangible implementation results with real money. The 136 million yuan from China Southern Power Grid Industrial Finance is not buying stocks, but an admission ticket.

02

The "Labor Shortage" in Frontline Operation and Maintenance

Is More Severe Than Expected

Why are power grids in a hurry to "develop humanoid robots"? One figure can illustrate the problem. According to the calculation of State Grid, a single live working robot saves 500,000 to 800,000 yuan in labor costs per year on average, with an investment payback period of about 2 to 3 years, 5 times higher inspection efficiency, and the exposure risk of high-risk operation personnel can be reduced by more than 90%.

Tens of thousands of frontline workers in the power grid system are engaged in inspection and operation and maintenance in high-altitude, high-voltage and high-risk environments all year round. It is getting more and more difficult to recruit workers for these positions, and few people are willing to spend 300 days wandering around substations in remote wilderness.

China Southern Power Grid's self-developed accumulation in embodied intelligence also illustrates the same trend. Its self-developed "Feiyun" quadruped robot has been iterated three times in three years, realizing that a single unit can replace 9 traditional intelligent inspection equipment at the 220 kV Zhangzhou Substation in Dongguan, reducing the manual operation and maintenance workload by more than 80%. In December 2025, "Feiyun" has been deployed at the substation of Companhia de Electricidade de Macau. The country's first power humanoid robot "Zhixingzhe No.1" has also entered the real-scene test phase at the 500 kV Zengcheng Substation.

But self-development has its limits. China Southern Power Grid has advantages in understanding power scenarios and accumulating data, but it may not be able to achieve the industry's top level in underlying technologies such as robot body motion control and AI large models. Cooperation with Unitree is essentially exchanging its most abundant scenarios for the other party's most mature body capability.

Data from the application side also confirms this judgment. The quadruped robot deployed at Lingzhou Converter Station of State Grid Ningxia, equipped with high-precision ultraviolet imager and UHF sensor, improves the detection efficiency by about 80%, and a single task can complete the work that used to require multiple people to cooperate and make multiple trips. The first power tunnel intelligent flying inspection robot in Zhejiang completed its first flight, with the visual detection range expanded by 30% compared with the traditional method, and a single operation only takes half an hour, with the efficiency increased by about 3 times.

These are not demonstrations in the laboratory, but operating data that are already running. When robots surpass human labor in both efficiency and safety, there is no need to hesitate on procurement decisions.

03

The Four Phrases of "Joint Formulation of Standards"

Are the Core Keyword of This Cooperation

If we only look at the equipment procurement level, the cooperation between China Southern Power Grid and Unitree is not special. In State Grid's 8,500-unit procurement list this year, robot body manufacturers including Unitree, Deepotion, Fourier Intelligence, UBTECH are all included. China Southern Power Grid can completely follow the path of State Grid, conduct public bidding and procurement through price comparison. But it chose to sign a strategic cooperation agreement.

The difference lies in the phrase "joint formulation of standards" mentioned by Qian Zhaoyang. Whoever participates in the formulation of industry standards will have the right of definition in the subsequent procurement system. China Southern Power Grid does not want to be just a big customer who spends tens of billions of yuan on equipment every year, it wants to be a rule maker.

This judgment is supported by facts. While releasing the procurement plan, State Grid simultaneously issued the *Technical Specification for Power Embodied Intelligent Equipment*, requiring all procured equipment to be deeply integrated with the "Guangming Power Large Model" and support local deployment. This means that the hardware of equipment suppliers must adapt to the large model and computing power architecture independently developed by State Grid. Whoever masters the right to define the model standards and data interfaces will occupy the upstream position in the industrial chain.

China Southern Power Grid has not launched a set of mandatory technical specifications like State Grid, but chose to deeply bind Unitree to form de facto standards through joint R&D. Unitree accounts for 60% to 70% of the global market share in the quadruped robot field, with 5,500 units of humanoid robots shipped in 2025 and a non-net profit of 591 million yuan, making it one of the very few companies in the industry that can achieve both mass production and profitability. China Southern Power Grid's binding with Unitree is equivalent to binding a partner with mass production capacity, and the jointly developed solutions naturally have the foundation for large-scale promotion.

But Unitree's position also needs to be observed. It appears on the procurement list of State Grid at the same time, and has also established cooperative relations with other energy enterprises. Zhongke Kaichuang has reached a comprehensive strategic cooperation with Unitree in the power and energy industry to promote the implementation of embodied intelligent robots in scenarios such as intelligent inspection and energy power. What Unitree is doing now is to turn itself into a platform-based company, and the power industry is just one of the vertical scenarios. How long China Southern Power Grid's "priority admission ticket" can last depends on the depth and speed of the joint development of both parties.

The tens of billions of yuan procurement is just the beginning. The signing action of China Southern Power Grid means that the demand for embodied intelligence in the energy and power industry is changing from an "optional item" to a "mandatory item". However, it should also be noted that the revenue of Unitree from power scenarios still accounts for a limited proportion of its total revenue, and there is still a considerable distance for humanoid robots to move from real-scene tests to normal operation. After the framework agreement is signed, when the joint R&D team will be established, which substation the first demonstration project will be located in, and when humanoid robots will truly enter the live working scenarios, these are the hard indicators to test the quality of the cooperation.

The irreversible trend that power system operation and maintenance is evolving from "human-led" to "human-machine collaboration" has taken shape. This step taken by China Southern Power Grid is betting on the underlying architecture of power operation and maintenance five years later. But between betting and realization, there are a large number of engineering problems to be solved. It is far more difficult for robots to enter substations from laboratories than to enter laboratories from stages.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Foresee Energy", written by Suo Yiping, and published with authorization from 36Kr.