Robot battles reach Canton Fair: Dreame shows off a mechanical arm for hot pot cooking, and Zhipu reveals its ambitions for the household market
The Canton Fair (China Import and Export Fair), held twice a year, kicked off its 139th session in 2026 today.
Since the beginning of this year, Lei Technology (ID: leitech) has successively completed on - site reports of major domestic and international technology exhibitions such as CES, MWC, and AWE. The reporting team of Lei Technology also did not miss this session of the Canton Fair held in Guangzhou.
More than 32,000 enterprises participated in the 139th Canton Fair, among which more than 11,000 are high - quality enterprises with titles such as "specialized, refined, characteristic and innovative" and "single - champion", both exceeding the levels of previous sessions. In line with the new trends and characteristics of foreign trade development, the number of exhibition product zones at this session of the Canton Fair has increased to 179. More new enterprises, new products, and new technologies are going global through this flagship exhibition platform to serve more global consumers.
On the first day of the 2026 Canton Fair, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) selected the most prominent "Service Robot Zone" from the 179 zones and conducted an in - depth exploration of this zone. The following are our first - hand observations sent back from the scene.
Service Robot Foreign Trade Battle: Suzhou and Shenzhen Go Head - to - Head
When the reporting team of Lei Technology explored the booths of embodied intelligent robot enterprises at CES and MWC, one of the impressions was that the overall area of brand booths was relatively small. If a booth had an area of over a hundred square meters, it could be regarded as a "big player" among robot brands.
The Service Robot Zone at this session of the Canton Fair is located in Hall 21.2, with a total area of 4,200 square meters, bringing together 46 enterprises. On average, each brand has a booth area of over a hundred square meters, realizing the dream of every enterprise to be a "big exhibitor".
Another intuitive impression of the Service Robot Zone at the Canton Fair on the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) is that after the absence of well - known Hangzhou robot enterprises such as Unitree and Deep Robotics, Suzhou is going head - to - head with Shenzhen's robot enterprises on this top - tier stage of China's foreign trade.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
At the entrance to the Service Robot Zone of the Canton Fair, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) immediately saw a huge promotional poster put up by Suzhou's robot enterprises, which read "Suzhou Intelligent Robots: All - around Powerhouses", covering five representative enterprises including Dreame, Ecovacs, Magic Atom, Zhixing, and ArmourX.
Among the 46 enterprises in the Service Robot Zone this year, Shenzhen contributed six representative enterprises, including Zhipu, Dobot, and Pudu.
Why can the Suzhou contingent challenge Shenzhen's enterprises at the Canton Fair? The secret lies in the name of the zone. The so - called "service robots" not only include humanoid robots but also non - humanoid robots. Non - humanoid robots are the focus of technological development and product forms for enterprises in intelligent cleaning categories or those with such origins, such as Dreame and Ecovacs.
Dreame brought a demonstration of an intelligent robotic arm to the Service Robot Zone. This embodied intelligent robotic arm is created by the X - HotPot brand under Dreame's ecological space - time quadrant. Relying on three core technologies, namely the AI cooking brain, 3D industrial vision, and compliant force - controlled skeleton, it can produce standardized beef in 8 seconds, achieving millisecond - level precise boiling and millimeter - level error in ingredient placement.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
Dreame's X - HotPot project entered the market through the popular hot - pot category in Chinese cuisine and launched corresponding hot - pot robots, including embodied intelligent robotic arms and intelligent systems. For overseas markets and overseas Chinese, hot - pot is also a quite popular type of Chinese cuisine. On the stage of the Canton Fair and in the city known as the "Food Capital", Dreame provided precise marketing to overseas customers.
Dreame also brought an intelligent robotic arm product for home laundry and care scenarios, which can automate the entire process of clothing washing and care and support voice control in 20 dialects.
Magic Atom, another robot enterprise in Dreame's ecosystem, presented robots similar to those shown at the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Horse at the Canton Fair booth. It showcased a multi - form robot product matrix, including the full - size general humanoid robot GEN 1, the high - dynamic bipedal humanoid robot MagicBot Z1, and the MagicDog series covering consumer and industrial scenarios, demonstrating its vision of "letting generalized robots serve every corner of the earth".
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
Ecovacs brought to this session of the Canton Fair its first "butler robot" named Bajie, which was a hit at the AWE booth and is equipped with OpenClaw.
Combined with the "AI intelligent agent" technology framework such as OpenClaw, Bajie can continuously learn in a real - life home environment, acquire skills and understand the world at a faster pace. It can not only achieve the active storage function based on long - term memory but also act as a "home avatar" to respond to remote agency needs.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
Relying on emerging brands with a full - scene intelligent ecosystem like Dreame and established intelligent cleaning robot enterprises like Ecovacs, Suzhou is waging a foreign trade battle against Shenzhen's robot enterprises in the "service" category at this year's Canton Fair. And the Shenzhen robot enterprises competing on the same stage are also ready to respond with their strong capabilities. Leading the way is Zhipu, currently the top - selling robot enterprise.
Embodied Intelligent Robot Giants are also Focusing on the Commercial Service Field
As the most well - known robot enterprise in the Service Robot Zone at this session of the Canton Fair, Zhipu brought a display of its multi - product matrix of embodied intelligent robots.
As the world's leading enterprise in the sales of embodied intelligent robots, Zhipu's production line forms are becoming more diverse. In addition to its main products such as humanoid robots, wheeled robots, quadruped robots, and key dexterous hand components, autonomous cleaning solutions for commercial spaces are also becoming its new focus of expansion and development.
At Zhipu's booth at the Canton Fair, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) noticed that the most prominent display at the product level was its first intelligent cleaning device, the C5.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
The Zhipu C5 is designed for medium - to - large - scale cleaning scenarios and commercial customers. It has multiple cleaning functions such as sweeping, mopping, and dust - pushing, meeting the cleaning needs of various hard floors. The device is equipped with various sensors, using laser - vision fusion positioning and point - cloud image fusion perception to handle relatively complex working environments. It is also equipped with a workstation that can automatically charge, add and drain water, and clean the sewage tank, significantly reducing the maintenance difficulty.
Zhipu hopes that its embodied intelligence and hardware technology can be applied to commercial intelligent cleaning devices to improve the cleaning quality of public spaces, reduce the intensity of cleaning work, lower the comprehensive operating costs, and at the same time, achieve digital cleaning to assist the transformation of smart property management.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
Fundamentally speaking, intelligent cleaning robots are currently the new hardware track with the strongest commercial monetization ability and the highest user recognition and acceptance. Compared with industrial and household robots, intelligent cleaning robots have made more practical and specific function and scenario adaptations at the product design level, thus achieving a faster implementation and popularization process.
In the current situation where intelligent cleaning devices are becoming more robotic, new giant enterprises of humanoid and embodied intelligent robots like Zhipu have more practical and multiple considerations when expanding and focusing on the intelligent cleaning category. After achieving initial market results in the field of commercial intelligent cleaning devices, Zhipu may enter the consumer - grade intelligent cleaning track.
Before Zhipu, another Shenzhen robot enterprise, Dobot, has already gone public. At the Canton Fair booth, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) saw that Dobot also uses robotic arms as its current main product, emphasizing its proficiency and process reliability in practical application scenarios such as massage, ice - cream making, and cup suction.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
It is not difficult to see that compared with technology exhibitions such as CES and MWC, the stage of the Canton Fair emphasizes more on the maturity and reliability of product implementation. After all, the core purpose of the participating enterprises and global customers at the Canton Fair is to convert their demand intentions into actual order transactions. More important than showing off technological strength is whether the products can be sold.
Industry giants in the application and transportation fields such as iFlytek and Ninebot also brought displays of their service robot products to this session of the Canton Fair.
iFlytek (Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology)
Among them, iFlytek brought a demonstration of its embodied intelligent data - collection, training, and promotion robot, which can accurately remember human operation actions. Combined with the Xinghuo large - model, it can achieve autonomous task learning and iteration, and is a general - purpose data - collection device suitable for all industries.
Ninebot brought a display of its robot product matrix focusing on intelligent hotel service scenarios, covering different forms of robot products for specific scenarios such as delivering items and meals.
Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology
Three Highlights in the Service Robot Zone at the Canton Fair: Dexterous Hands, Spherical Robots, and Exoskeletons
After exploring the Service Robot Zone at this session of the Canton Fair, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) also found more highlights.
Compared with robot product booths, the reporting team of Lei Technology (ID: leitech) found that exoskeleton and dexterous hand product booths were more likely to attract on - site audiences to queue up for experiences, especially exoskeletons.
Why are exoskeleton robot booths so popular? It's actually easy to understand. First, exoskeletons can be directly worn for experience, giving customers a higher sense of participation and experience, which is more conducive to finalizing order transactions. Second, the experience area of exoskeletons occupies a relatively large area, naturally attracting more people to queue up for experiences. Finally, exoskeleton products have become increasingly popular in both domestic and international markets in recent years, especially in developed markets in Europe and the United States, where the category scale has significantly increased.
Taixi Intelligence (Source: Photographed at the 2026 Canton Fair by Lei Technology)
Similarly, the dexterous hand technology experience area is also very popular. Currently, both the product market and the capital market for dexterous hands in China are becoming more and more active.