Intelligent robots, the next trillion-dollar track

Content source: Sharing session of Zhongke Chuangxing's Hard Technology Champion Enterprise Entrepreneurship Camp on April 10th.

Guest speaker: Wang Tianmiao, initiator of Zhiyou · Yarui Science and Innovation Platform, honorary director of the Robotics Research Institute of Beihang University, dean of the Zhongguancun Zhiyou Research Institute, Changjiang Scholar, winner of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, and chairman of the IEEE R&A Beijing Region.

China has become a major country in intelligent manufacturing. However, to become a powerful country in intelligent manufacturing by 2035, it still needs to make arrangements and achieve breakthroughs in key future industries.

The Two Sessions in 2026 have clearly proposed six emerging pillar industries for China in the next 10 years.

Intelligent robots are bound to become an important pillar industry and core force in the future. They will change the industrial chain, our work and life, and even society.

So, what are the opportunities and challenges brought by intelligent robots?

This article first interprets the pattern of key future industries. At the same time, it understands the underlying logic of technological development and innovation from the development history of intelligent robots to explore future industrial opportunities.

I. Future industrial trends from the perspective of the convergence of cutting - edge technologies

1. The industry status of key technologies and national layout

① The status of Chinese enterprises in key technologies

Let's take a look at the industry status of Chinese enterprises in various key technologies of new infrastructure:

China is in the leading position in the fields of new energy and new - energy vehicles. In terms of the scale and efficiency of high - end equipment, it is currently ranked first in the world. In the chip field, the 45 - nanometer process is completely independently controllable, and the self - sufficiency rate of China in the processes above 12 nanometers and 14 nanometers has reached 75%. In 5G communication, China ranks first in the world. In terms of marine and aerospace engineering capabilities, China is also the world's best.

The application efficiency of large AI models ranks first in the world. The balance and movement ability of humanoid robots rank first in the world, and its export volume is also the highest globally.

Affected by international geopolitical competition, due to the lunar landing program promoted by NASA in the United States and Musk's accelerated promotion of space computing power layout, China will also invest important resources in the commercial aerospace field.

In the field of quantum computers, China is advancing on three technical routes simultaneously, namely the superconducting route in Hefei, the ion - trap route in Beijing, and the neutral - atom route in Shanghai, with the aim of breaking through 2000, or even 6100 physical qubits, and 300 - 500 logical qubits, so as to conduct large - scale research and development of new materials and new drugs.

However, we also need to see a reality: In the 2025 Fortune Global 500 list, 130 Chinese enterprises are on the list, and a considerable proportion of these enterprises are concentrated in industries such as finance, energy, and metal products.

If we take industries with a higher degree of marketization and mainly based on technological innovation as a reference, there are about 40 - 70 Global 500 enterprises with global competitiveness.

If China wants to become a powerful country in economy, industry, and technology by 2035, it means that the number of Chinese enterprises in the Global 500 may approach 200. This huge "incremental space" is essentially the new self - positioning coordinates that hard - technology entrepreneurs should aim for.

In recent years' great - power games, the resilience and autonomy of the supply chain have become the most solid foundation for the dream of a powerful country. Especially for the core industries related to national security, full - scale self - control should be achieved.

This means ensuring that there are independent and alternative solutions that are not subject to others in key links as much as possible, such as aerospace, drones, energy, communication, semiconductors, and robots.

② Find your unique value and future opportunities from the national plan

The Two Sessions this year proposed the "14th Five - Year" industrial plan: six emerging pillar industries, including integrated circuits, aerospace, biomedicine, low - altitude economy, new energy storage, and intelligent robots.

Based on this, as entrepreneurs, we need to think from two aspects.

Firstly, if our enterprise is a unit of innovation, we need to examine these major fields. Through a penetrating analysis of global and Chinese leading enterprises in the industrial chain, we can accurately locate their structural gaps and the links in urgent need of filling. Only with these thoughts and the enterprise's precise entry can there be explosive revenue.

Secondly, since the "14th Five - Year" plan has pointed out the development direction for the next five years, what new industries will be derived from these industries in the future "15th Five - Year" plan? For example, among the current emerging pillar industries, the low - altitude economy and intelligent robots did not exist in the past.

Further, the in - depth development of intelligent robots reflects an important path for China's manufacturing industry in the future - that is "combining software and hardware, with hardware as the main focus". This will become a new industrial lighthouse and industrial coordinate for China in the future. Relying on China's manufacturing advantages, intelligent robots will become an important direction for China's future industrial transformation "from product output to production - capacity output".

2. The evolution of the science and innovation ecosystem

① Three forces that change the industrial wave

In the process of the integration of technological innovation and industry, there will inevitably be three forces that change the industrial wave of the era:

Firstly, the vanguard is the "disruptor and pathfinder" of the new era. They hope to achieve "0 - to - 1" innovation based on the first - principles thinking, breaking the traditional system and supply - chain pattern.

Secondly, the pragmatists are the "practical promoters" of innovation implementation and resource integration in the new era. Relying on entrepreneurship by senior executives and a mixed - system model, they are good at making the leap from 1 to 10 and achieving "limited goals" in a limited time.

Thirdly, the cornerstone faction is the "creator" of the national pillar industries for the large - scale application of new technologies. With the natural late - comer advantage of the national team, they are good at covering industries from 10 to 100, consolidating the technological foundation of the national economy.

② Key elements and basic logic of the evolution of science and innovation

Since the second half of 2024, the national logic has been prioritized, and resources have been rapidly concentrated on the leading players, which has accelerated the reshaping of the internal elements of entrepreneurial projects.

Entrepreneurial projects should follow two logics: one is the national logic, focusing on pillar industries, safe and independent development, solving the problems of "bottlenecks, substitutions, and hard technologies", having a strategic forward - looking layout awareness, and paying attention to the long - term value of disruptive technologies; the other is the market logic, mainly based on enterprise - style operation, market - demand - oriented, and centered on efficiency, large - scale growth, and scarcity.

In this logical context, we must understand that entrepreneurship is a market - economic activity, not just a technological activity.

In this economic activity, different combinations of elements are needed at different stages. What if there are no market orders when only following the national logic? What if we only follow the market logic and fail to keep up with the future development trend and the national industrial logic?

Therefore, we must understand the entire industrial chain based on these two underlying logics. First, find the leading enterprises in the industrial chain and then find our own value in the industrial chain.

③ With the same technology source, the integration between industries is expected to give rise to the "aggregated intelligent agent industry"

In the past 20 years, China's manufacturing industry, which combines software and hardware with hardware as the main focus, has established our voice in the world and promoted the leap - forward development of emerging industries time and time again.

In the next decade, if we understand the emerging industrial cluster as an intelligent agent with cognition, capable of forming a closed - loop, and even continuously self - evolving, an aggregated intelligent agent industry integrating the old and the new will be formed. In the cross - integration of these general - technology industries, new leading enterprises with a scale of hundreds of billions or trillions will emerge.

Among them, embodied intelligence has the greatest development opportunity. It is integrating seemingly discrete industries such as traditional cars, new - energy vehicles, electric bicycles, CNC machine tools, and industrial robots under the catalysis of embodied intelligence - that is, the "aggregated intelligent agent".

3. The core logic for intelligent robots to become an emerging pillar industry

Firstly, the world is facing a systematic shortage of labor. A report shows that the shortage is approximately in the hundreds of millions, covering technical R & D personnel, service personnel, and various innovation - supporting positions.

Secondly, technology is converging rapidly. In the field of large models, the industry generally believes that vertical applications will accelerate the convergence; the physical scenarios are also converging - by determining the application scenarios, system processes, and core intelligent modules, the industrialization speed will be greatly accelerated.

Based on this judgment, some people believe that the penetration rate of robots in households is expected to reach 10% in the next decade; some even think that if the household - end penetration rate reaches 10%, the industrial - end penetration rate may reach 80%.

So now there is an all - around competition: the models are competing, the industrial layout is competing, and market confidence is also competing. The combination of AI and traditional robots, especially in the direction related to digital employees, is accelerating comprehensively.

II. Embodied intelligence, reshaping society

1. The concept and characteristics of embodied intelligence

Before 2022, embodied intelligence was in a stage of scattered development for a long time, so our previous definitions of it were relatively macroscopic.

A robot is a tool or equipment that uses a computer to achieve programming, perception, decision - making, and operation around a mechanical carrier. Embodied intelligence, in essence, is a physical carrier, a paradigm for intelligence to evolve from the digital world to the physical world.

Embodied intelligence has three core characteristics: first, human - machine interaction, which can achieve effective linkage between humans and the physical carrier; second, closed - loop operation control, forming a complete closed - loop of "perception - decision - making - operation - feedback"; third, continuous evolution, which can improve its own intelligence level through continuous data collection over time.

2. 2026 is the first year of the application of embodied intelligence

According to the analysis of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, humanoid robots have great development potential in the future, at least for humanoid - like robots.

The so - called humanoid - like robots are those with two eyes, two arms, wheeled movement, and an upper body similar to that of humans. From the perspective of application scenarios, such robots can cover multiple fields such as industry, commerce, and households in the future.

This year is generally regarded as the first year of the application of embodied intelligence because people have figured out one thing: it is not necessary to be completely general - purpose, and it is not necessary to completely establish a world model. Instead, we should first conduct "intelligent demarcation".

Intelligent demarcation has two meanings:

One is to define the boundaries of the application scenario. Starting from the "embodied skills" in relatively constrained - environment applications, we converge and summarize the skills, and then look at the R & D of "embodied intelligence" from the perspectives of specific tasks, functions, carriers, models, and data.

The other is to define intelligent functions from a systematic perspective. For each link, process, fault - tolerance tolerance, cost maintenance, and other elements of the objective environment, we design or select corresponding intelligent functions to replace certain specific links, so as to achieve the value matching between products and the market (PMF).

From these two perspectives, we strengthen the so - called general - purpose operation platform and relatively vertical application models. Eventually, there will be about three to five general - purpose models, and there may be 50 to 60 vertical - specific models. This is probably the final state of this industry.

3. Intelligent agents, accelerating social reshaping

With the development of the robot industry, the digital operation of factories will become inevitable, and the roles of employees need to be re - defined:

The first type is real people. They may hold iPads or wear some kind of smart glasses and become on - site dispatchers; the second type is robots, such as welding robots and 3D printing robots, which undertake corresponding physical labor; the third type is digital employees, who are responsible for real - time reporting, monitoring, and coordinating process - based work.

In the past, we imagined that machines would completely replace humans. In the future, will there be a brand - new production management model? In fact, it is to coordinate these three types of people or species, clarifying when humans are needed, when machines are needed, and when digital employees are needed.

Intelligent agent technologies like OpenClaw will accelerate the whole process. Firstly, people can program through natural language without writing code. As long as they speak, it can understand and conduct dispatching; secondly, the invocation of third - party skill packages will also accelerate the iterative process.

In this accelerating development process, if purely driven by data efficiency, it will become an irresistible technological dark horse - forcing traditional enterprises to change, promoting the birth of innovative enterprises, and reshaping the whole society.

The essence of this reshaping process is achieved through two types of "dispatches": one is blue - collar labor dispatch, which we understand as robots; the other is white - collar dispatch, that is, what we call digital employees.

In this reshaping process, a consensus is being formed: for standardized and large - scale work, humans should be involved as little as possible because the replacement cycle of such occupations is about 24 months - that is, a cycle for recovering labor costs.

Judging from this iterative speed, fields such as logistics and distribution, environmental sanitation, welding and assembly, polishing and grinding, agricultural and sideline product or food processing, traditional driving, agricultural planting, and construction engineering are easily covered by robots; while fields that are difficult to be replaced are those that are relatively complex and difficult to standardize, such as early childhood education, elderly care services, and plumbing maintenance.

III. Entrepreneurship, a "nine - deaths - one - survival" journey full of uncertainties

1. Two key variables in entrepreneurship

① The value elements are changing

In the agricultural era, value was attached to land, farm tools, cattle, and labor; in the industrial era, value was defined by factories, equipment, and working hours, and then expanded through capital; in the Internet era,