In 2025, embodied intelligence finally reached the eve of an explosion.

The joys and sorrows between the "new and old" robots are not the same.

While the new - generation robots are engaging in humanoid robot fighting and walking dogs, traditional robot companies are still using robotic arms to move goods. One scene is bustling, while the other is deserted.

On August 9th, another World Robot Conference (WRC) opened in Beijing. As the largest exhibition in previous sessions, this exhibition was attended by more than 200 domestic and foreign robot enterprises, including over 50 humanoid robot complete - machine enterprises. A total of more than 1,500 exhibits and over 100 new product launches were on display at this exhibition, so many that a whole wall couldn't fit all the "introductions".

"The large - scale model has solved the problem of robot operation. Now robots can work and truly interact with the physical world."

Hu Luhui, the founder and CEO of Zhicheng AI, summarized the evolution of robots in the past year to Guangzhui Intelligence in this way.

Braving the heavy rain and the crowded crowd in Beijing that day, Guangzhui Intelligence had three most intuitive feelings on the spot.

First of all, humanoid robots were the absolute stars of the conference this year. In previous conferences, Hall A generally focused on displaying the industrial application scenarios of robots. This year, the organizers specifically arranged two humanoid robot manufacturers, Unitree and Accelerated Evolution, to "attract traffic". Hall B, which was used to demonstrate new technologies, was directly occupied by humanoid robots. At the booths without humanoid robots, the density of the audience was visibly "sparse".

Secondly, the demonstration of humanoid robots this year mainly focused on "interactivity". At last year's robot exhibition, many robots still had "barriers" around them. This year, robot manufacturers hoped that consumers could "touch" them. In the exhibition areas of small humanoid robots, robot dogs, and robot toys, Guangzhui Intelligence saw many consumers asking for prices and wanting to place orders on the spot and take them away.

Finally, most robot manufacturers' demonstrations this year focused on showing practical value. Robots have achieved initial exploration in scenarios such as factories, scientific research and education, medical care and elderly care.

The most down - to - earth scenario was the street stall scene. There were various small stalls where robots made coffee on the spot at the conference site, as well as variant scenarios such as robot small bars, robot pancake stalls, and robot retail stores.

In the industrial scenario, the robot manufacturers that have taken the lead in implementation have begun to emphasize the concept of cluster cooperation. Compared with the thin label of "able to work" last year, this year's robots began to emphasize more practical data indicators such as the combination of robots and automated production lines, battery life, continuous working hours, and return cycle.

The actual implementation and application have enabled robots to enter the mass - production stage. When Guangzhui Intelligence inquired about the mass - production situation, many robot manufacturers proudly said that they had shipped hundreds of units this year. Robots have begun to penetrate into our daily lives.

"This year, we will cooperate with online store merchants to implement 100 stores. After consumers place orders online, the robots are responsible for sorting the goods and then handing them over to the riders for delivery." Fu Qiang, a partner of Galaxy Universal Robotics, introduced to Guangzhui Intelligence.

At the conference site, Guangzhui Intelligence also noticed that executives from Samsung and several Japanese companies were "observing" everywhere. This means that China's humanoid robots will have the opportunity to go global, just like other robots.

The changes in the robot industry are an obvious signal.

In an industry driven by technological innovation, the closer it is to large - scale application, the faster the iteration speed of technology and products will be. This is based on the previous accumulation and is also the result of the convergence of the Bass model (innovation diffusion theory) driven by consumer consensus.

During this exhibition visit, Guangzhui Intelligence also contacted executives from many key companies such as Galaxy Universal, Ubtech, Zhicheng AI, Zhongqing Robotics, and Magic Atom to comprehensively discuss the current situation and future of the robot industry.

Robots in 2025 are mainly about being able to work

"Many robots couldn't move last year, but this year they can move and perform some specific tasks."

At the World Robot Conference this year, Fu Qiang summarized the changes in the past year to Guangzhui Intelligence. Walking past the booths of various companies, Guangzhui Intelligence noticed that there were fewer "showy" demonstrations of robots this year and more demonstrations combined with actual business scenarios.

The on - site robot demonstration scenarios can be roughly divided into four categories, each of which is closely centered around the theme of commercialization.

The most eye - catching is the demonstration of the robots' movement ability.

Compared with the "small - scale + fixed - time and fixed - point" robot demonstrations in previous years, the robots of various manufacturers this year basically didn't stop. Players with higher movement skills were "putting on shows". Unitree demonstrated robot fighting, Accelerated Evolution demonstrated robot football, and Zhongqing and Magic Atom held robot fashion shows. The on - lookers were crowded three - deep, and it was impossible to squeeze in. Some manufacturers even "put" the robots on treadmills.

There were also some players with relatively weak movement ability at the conference. The display mode of these robots was similar to that of last year, which was simply to show the appearance and dialogue ability. For those even weaker, they just dressed the robots up. It was unknown what the internal body looked like.

Where there were robot movement demonstrations, there were on - lookers. And the on - looking itself could generate commercial value. "A robot is sold for hundreds of thousands of yuan. Currently, the customers include Hongqi Automobile, and they use the robots for display and reception." At the Leju Robot booth, the staff explained the commercial value brought by robot demonstrations to Guangzhui Intelligence.

The best - implemented robots at present are the ubiquitous retail robots.

The most frequently seen robots were those in the coffee - selling and shelf - management scenarios. These two types of robots have fully achieved the ability of automated operation. In the coffee - selling demonstration, customers scan the code to place an order, and the robot automatically completes the food delivery. This is no different from buying coffee at an offline coffee shop. In the shelf - retail scenario, the robot sorts and picks up the goods on - site according to the audience's selection.

In addition, there were also retail scenarios such as making pancakes and automatic bartending on - site. These can basically be regarded as variants of "selling coffee" and can provide the full - process tasks from code - scanning to food delivery for customers.

It is worth noting that this year, the robots in the retail scenario began to pay attention to the details of actual commercial implementation.

For example, the pancake - making robot will display all the states of the pancakes, making consumers feel at ease when buying. In addition, the retail shelf robots did not blindly adopt the bipedal movement scheme. This design is mainly to ensure stable operation and take battery life into account.

Fu Qiang told Guangzhui Intelligence, "The advantage of wheeled robots is that the technology is relatively mature. A robot equipped with a 1.5 - degree battery can support continuous operation for 8 hours."

In contrast to the retail scenario is the application of humanoid robots in the industrial scenario.

Compared with the demonstration of a single robot performing fixed tasks last year, robots this year began to emphasize the concept of "cluster cooperation". At this year's conference site, although the robots' work content was still the "three - piece set" of sorting, handling, and quality inspection, there was a concept of mutual cooperation in the work process.

"The industrial scenario must move towards cluster operation. It doesn't make much sense to implement one or two robots in a single scenario."

Jiao Jichao, the vice - president and the dean of the research institute of Ubtech, told Guangzhui Intelligence that the cluster cooperation of robots represents that humanoid robots are beginning to integrate into the modern industrial production system. In this process, robot companies can also transform the problems encountered in application into technological barriers. "To achieve cluster cooperation, robot companies need to spend time delving into the customers' production processes, communicate with customers, and connect with the customers' industrial background management systems. Before actual implementation, it is difficult to imagine these cooperations." Jiao Jichao said.

The last category is the price - cutting competition that the industry staged again.

Last year, some exhibitors were still "reluctant to talk about" the price, but this year they were much more confident. Although buying a humanoid robot for retail or industrial use is still costly. But most of the staff at the booths would clearly tell us whether the selling price was in the hundreds of thousands or close to one million. Overall, the selling price of robots this year was much more reasonable. Take the robots for guiding and performing as an example. The cost of 70,000 - 80,000 yuan is about the same as a person's annual salary.

On the other hand, humanoid robots have started a price war. Zhongqing played the role of the "price butcher" last year, and this year's new product offers "more quantity without a price increase". Last year, you could buy a product with only the "lower body" for 38,500 yuan, but this year's new product is a complete humanoid posture.

"The secret to 'cutting the price further' is that the company has the ability of full - stack self - research so that it can balance performance and selling price," Ren Guowen, the co - founder of Zhongqing Robotics, told Guangzhui Intelligence.

In 2025, robots can really "work and earn money". From the strong commercial atmosphere this year, we can clearly feel that the robot industry has "changed" in just one year.

After one year, the combination of large - scale models and robots has finally been implemented

"It is mainly due to the improvement of the large - scale model's ability. The biggest difference between this generation of robot technology and the previous generation is the 'evolution of the brain'." Fu Qiang said.

This is also the consensus of many robot manufacturers.

The key VLA model can be understood as adding a layer of generalizable and predictable interpretation of the real world to the previous traditional VA model using L (language).

"The generalization ability of VLA can directly output a real - time generated action of the model through visual input, which is the biggest difference from the previous programming technology." Fu Qiang summarized.

For example, the GO - 1 large - scale model of Zhiyuan can be regarded as adding a layer of CoT (Chain of Thought), which is similar to the core design architecture of companies such as Figure and Xinghaitu that focus on the "fast - slow dual - system". Some companies also believe that there is a world model above VLA. Hu Luhui told Guangzhui Intelligence, "The scaling law of VLA has reached a bottleneck, and the world model is the future."

We can see from Xinghaitu's household service robot: on the left side of the screen is the instruction "make the bed" given by humans. On the right side of the screen is the current command "return to the initial position" disassembled and generated in real - time by the large - language model.

The basic consistency of the core technical routes has made various manufacturers choose to make the robots as humanoid as possible, even if these demonstration and implementation scenarios have nothing to do with the humanoid appearance.