Why is Beijing Yizhuang considered the holy land for robots?
On April 19th, in Yizhuang.
Twenty - six brands and over 300 robots participated in a half - marathon.
The Glory "Lightning" robot won the championship in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, breaking the human world record.
Nearly 40% of the participating teams used autonomous navigation.
These are the numbers in the science and technology news.
But what's more worthy of attention is another number:
This is the second Humanoid Robot Half - Marathon, and its scale has increased nearly five times compared to the previous one.
Five - fold growth in one year.
This is not an accidental outburst but the result of a systematic three - year layout by a city.
Why Yizhuang, not Lingang in Shanghai, not Pingshan in Shenzhen, not Tianfu in Chengdu?
What kind of place is Yizhuang? First, establish the coordinates
The Beijing Economic - Technological Development Area, abbreviated as "Yizhuang", is located in the southeast of Beijing, covering an area of about 225 square kilometers. It is the most concentrated area for industrial manufacturing in Beijing.
Yizhuang's past calling card was "the pillar of Beijing's manufacturing industry":
Mercedes - Benz vehicles, BOE displays, SMIC wafers, and Xiaomi cars - all are produced in Yizhuang.
The total industrial output value of the whole district exceeds 700 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40% of Beijing's industrial output value.
Why is this industrial - intensive place suitable for robots?
Because what robots need most is not a beautiful exhibition hall but real usage scenarios.
There are factories, hospitals, schools, and communities - robots need places to be used.
Yizhuang happens to be the place with the richest scenario resources in Beijing.
Three - year layout: How did Yizhuang win in this field?
Step 1: Policy support with early investment ahead of the market
In 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots", clearly stating that humanoid robots will achieve mass production by 2025.
Beijing quickly followed and launched the "Action Plan for the Innovative Development of the Robot Industry in Beijing (2023 - 2025)".
And Yizhuang took a step further than Beijing:
In August 2024, at the World Robot Conference, Yizhuang officially released the "Action Plan for Building a World - Class Embodied Intelligent Robot Industrial New City (2024 - 2026)".
The goals are extremely specific:
By the end of 2026: Aggregate over 100 innovative enterprises, gather over 1000 high - end talents, and form the mass - production capacity of tens of thousands of units.
By 2030: Build an innovative ecological cluster of embodied intelligent robots with "full - chain layout, full - stack autonomy, and panoramic empowerment".
The "Five - One" working mechanism: One park, a group of platforms, one center, one fund, and a group of talents.
The "Ten Measures for Embodied Intelligent Robots": Eight support measures are pioneered in the country, including sales subsidies for humanoid robots and rewards for data collection training fields.
Source: Official policy documents of the Beijing Economic - Technological Development Area Management Committee in August 2024.
Pioneered in the country.
These three words are proof that Yizhuang is leading in the field of robot policies.
Step 2: Open up scenarios to provide places for robots to work
Policy alone is not enough. What enterprises fear most is that after robots are manufactured, no customers are willing to use them.
Yizhuang's answer is: I'll be the first customer.
In 2025, Yizhuang released the "Ten - Thousand - Robot Innovation Application Plan":
Open up nine benchmark scenarios within two years, releasing application opportunities for over ten thousand embodied robots worth nearly 5 billion yuan.
These nine scenarios cover: high - end manufacturing, education and teaching, gardens and waters, industrial parks, commercial services, medical care and rehabilitation, power inspection, municipal management, and community property.
Xiaomi Automobile Factory: Over 700 robots serve the production line (already in actual operation in Yizhuang).
The first "certified" AI catering robot in the country: Landed in Yizhuang.
The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center "Tianguang": Released in Yizhuang, achieving the world's first anthropomorphic running of a full - size pure - electric - drive humanoid robot.
Source: The official website of the Beijing Municipal People's Government / Sina Finance.
Scenarios are the only standard to test robots.
Yizhuang not only provides subsidies to enterprises but also directly becomes the most important "first customer" of enterprises.
This difference is something that many other cities have not achieved.
Step 3: Promote production through competitions and make Yizhuang a global focus
In 2025, the World Robot Conference was permanently located in Yizhuang.
In 2025, the first Humanoid Robot Half - Marathon was held in Yizhuang - there were only dozens of participating robots, but it attracted global attention from science and technology media.
In 2026, the second half - marathon - 26 brands, 300 robots, 40% using autonomous navigation, and the results breaking human records.
The "half - marathon" is not just a sports event but an annual product launch.
Each participating enterprise uses this arena to showcase the latest technological level of its robots to the world.
The smart thing about Yizhuang is not to show the existing achievements but to refresh the standards every year.
What does Yizhuang have now?
Good policies are important, but actual results matter more.
There are over 300 robot and intelligent manufacturing ecological enterprises in Yizhuang (more than 30 of them are humanoid robot whole - machine enterprises).
The scale of Yizhuang's robot industry is nearly 10 billion yuan, accounting for 50% of Beijing's robot industry.
The robot industrial park covers an area of 250,000 square meters and has 54 corporate headquarters buildings.
Representative enterprises that have settled in: Ubtech, Galaxy General, Songyan Power, Acceleration Evolution, Xingdong Era, Lingzu Times, etc.
The proportion of specialized and sophisticated enterprises: Over 50% in the robot park.
Source: The official website of the Beijing Municipal People's Government / Forward - looking Industry Research Institute / Beijing Science and Technology Commission.
The "1 + 6" industrial system is the name Yizhuang gave to this ecosystem:
One core component system, plus six directions including humanoid robots, industrial robots, special robots, medical robots, collaborative robots, and logistics robots.
It covers the entire chain from precision parts such as reducers and servo motors to whole - machine manufacturing and then to application scenarios.
Compared with other cities, where does Yizhuang win?
The robot industry is being competed for across the country. No city, including Shanghai, Shenzhen, Chengdu, and Suzhou, wants to miss out.
What exactly does Yizhuang rely on?
Advantage 1: Incomparable scientific research resources
Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences - the top robot scientific research resources in China are concentrated in Beijing.
Yizhuang is adjacent to these institutions and is the place in the country where it is easiest to transform laboratory results into products.
In the "Ten Measures for Embodied Intelligent Robots", there are special support provisions for "university - enterprise joint laboratories", with a maximum subsidy of 5 million yuan.
Advantage 2: Natural advantages in manufacturing scenarios
The most important commercialization scenario for humanoid robots is the factory.
Yizhuang has the Mercedes - Benz factory, Xiaomi Automobile Factory, and BOE factory, which are natural test fields for robots.
In Lingang, Shanghai, the scenarios are also rich, but the scientific research resources are not as good as those in Beijing.
In Pingshan, Shenzhen, there are many technology companies, but they are more focused on consumer electronics, and the foundation of heavy - industry manufacturing is weak.
Advantage 3: Direct government investment
The Beijing Robot Industry Development Investment Fund directly invests in early - stage robot enterprises.
The "First - trial and First - use" policy: The maximum reward for a single product is 500,000 yuan, and the maximum annual reward for an enterprise is 2 million yuan.
The "Humanoid Robot Sales Subsidy": Pioneered in the country, it reduces the cash - flow pressure of enterprises from R & D to commercialization.
The value of these policies lies not only in the amount of money but also in the "signal significance" - only when the government is willing to pay can enterprises dare to invest.
Where are the gaps?
Yizhuang is not without weaknesses.
Shanghai has a more mature ability to connect with international capital, and multinational robot enterprises are more willing to settle in Shanghai.
Shenzhen has the most complete electronic supply chain in the world, and it has a natural advantage in cost control of robot core components.
Chengdu has cheaper labor and land costs, which is suitable for labor - intensive robot assembly and testing.
Yizhuang's positioning is a "technological high - ground and a demonstration new city", not the cheapest but the most advanced.
2026 is a crucial year
"By the end of 2026, form the mass - production capacity of tens of thousands of embodied intelligent robots."
This is the goal Yizhuang set in 2024, and it will be realized this year.
Can it be achieved?
Judging from the current pace, there is pressure, but it is possible.
In Q1 of 2026, the production of power and energy - storage batteries in China increased by 49.3% year - on - year - the overall prosperity of the new - energy industry has increased, and the downstream application demand for humanoid robots is also accelerating.
The market scale of humanoid robots in 2026 is expected to reach about 1.0471 billion yuan, nearly four times that of 2024.
Major global technology companies (NVIDIA, Tesla, Google DeepMind) are all accelerating the promotion of humanoid robot projects, and they are sharing the market education cost.
Forecast of the market scale of humanoid robots in China: about 1.04 billion yuan in 2026, about 75 billion yuan in 2029, and about 300 billion yuan in 2035.
It is expected that the Chinese market share in 2026 will account for 32.7% of the global market, ranking first in the world.
Source: "Research Report on the Humanoid Robot Industry" / Forward - looking Industry Research Institute.
But to be honest: achieving mass production of tens of thousands of units in 2026 is extremely challenging.
Mass production means not only being able to manufacture but also ensuring stable operation and customers being willing to pay.
Currently, there are only a handful of humanoid robot enterprises that have truly achieved large - scale commercialization globally.
Yizhuang's goal is the ceiling of the industry, not the starting line.
After the robot crosses the finish line, then what?
50 minutes and 26 seconds. The Glory "Lightning" crossed the finish line.
Behind this robot is the entire industrial ecosystem of Yizhuang:
It's those more than 300 robot enterprises, the government subsidies and scenarios, the global attention brought by the World Robot Conference every year,
and the engineers in the 250,000 - square - meter robot industrial park who are doing research and development.
But the race is just the beginning.
The real battlefield for robots is not on the track but beside the factory assembly line, in the hospital corridors, and in the living rooms of the elderly.
Yizhuang is opening up these scenarios one by one.
That robot that finished the race in less than 50 minutes,
is not just a product of a single company,
but a bet made by the whole city,
and also an answer sheet for China's robot industry.
Whether it is qualified or not, the market will give the answer.
Information sources
1. Results of the 2026 Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Robot Half - Marathon / Sina Finance on April 19, 2026
2. "Action Plan for Building a World - Class Embodied Intelligent Robot Industrial New City in the Beijing Economic - Technological Development Area (2024 - 2026)" / The official website of the Economic - Technological Development Area Management Committee
3. "The Beijing Economic - Technological Development Area Will Mass - Produce Ten Thousand Embodied Intelligent Robots in 2027" / The official website of the Beijing Science and Technology Commission in August 2025
4. "Yizhuang in Beijing Accelerates the Construction of a National Robot Industry High - ground" / The official website of the Beijing Municipal People's Government in March 2025
5. Speech at the press conference by Jiang Hongchao, Deputy Director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology / Sina Finance in December 2025
6. "Understand the Current Situation and Investment Opportunities of the Characteristic Humanoid Robot Industry in Beijing at a Glance" / Forward - looking Industry Research Institute in August 2025
7. "Research Report on the Humanoid Robot Industry" / Released at the 2024 China Humanoid Robot Industry Conference
8. "Several Measures of the Beijing Economic - Technological Development Area to Promote the Innovative Development of Embodied Intelligent Robots" / August 2025
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