Robots are coming to work in factories, and Guangdong has once again been the first to make money from this trend.

A humanoid robot walked off the production line on its own.

This is not a scene from a sci-fi movie. Recently, XPeng Robotics officially launched the world's first automated production line for high-end general-purpose humanoid robots. On the same day, the first IRON completed automated final assembly and walked off the production line independently. This is not only a key strategic move for XPeng in the field of embodied intelligence, but also pushes Guangdong's humanoid robot industry from single-point breakthroughs to full production line validation.

Image source: He Xiaopeng's Weibo

In the past, the robotics industry has long remained in the stage of small-batch, semi-manual assembly, and large-scale manufacturing is a widely recognized industry challenge. For this reason, XPeng independently designed this automated production line and located its mass production base in Guangzhou.

Earlier this year, this project was unveiled at the Guangzhou High-Quality Development Conference as a key "good start" project in Tianhe District. The production line was forward-developed with the goal of mass production, with an automation rate of over 80% in core manufacturing processes.

The significance of this production line lies far beyond the cross-border move of an automaker. It is more like a signal that the embodied intelligence industry in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has shifted from the stage of "whether the product can be manufactured" to "whether it can be applied on a large scale".

Why Can the Greater Bay Area Take the Lead?

With the manufacturing foundation accumulated over the past 40 years, the Greater Bay Area has already gained a certain say in the global embodied intelligence market.

Statistics show that China accounts for 38% of the global market share of the embodied intelligence supply chain, 55% of which is contributed by the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area centered on Shenzhen. If the Greater Bay Area is measured as an independent economy, its share will reach 24%, equal to that of Europe and exceeding that of Japan.

From the perspective of the industrial chain, the Greater Bay Area has formed a closed-loop of the entire industrial chain covering from "eyes" and "skin" to "hands" and "joints", and then to "brain" and "body". For example, EVE Energy provides power batteries, Orbbec focuses on 3D vision, while companies including Paccini, UBTECH, ExDynamics, and ZSquare cover key links such as tactile sensors, complete machines and embodied intelligence algorithms.

In other words, a humanoid robot can be fully equipped without stepping out of the Pearl River Delta.

This advantage has also become a key factor for a large number of embodied intelligence enterprises to choose to settle here. Zhang Wei, founder of ExDynamics, resigned from his teaching position in the United States to return to China to start a business. He compared the efficiency of the two places and finally chose to take root in Shenzhen for a simple reason: in the past, in the US laboratory, ordering robot parts from factories in the Pearl River Delta required a month of waiting; now in Shenzhen, the parts can be obtained on the very same day.

The reason why Zhao Tongyang, founder of Qiantuo Robotics, chose to locate its intelligent manufacturing base in Nanshan, Shenzhen, is also the same — efficiency. Relying on the Greater Bay Area industrial chain, Qiantuo has built a "2-hour supply chain response circle" for core components.

Even Jensen Huang said that the best place to make robots is the Greater Bay Area in China, Shenzhen in particular, where the speed from idea to mold opening and prototype production is surprisingly fast.

This kind of synergy has entered the stage of mass production and delivery. According to market sources, Lens Technology has supplied core parts such as head masks and dexterous hands to XPeng Robotics, and joint modules and structural parts have begun to be delivered in batches.

This solid supply chain foundation has also supported a number of leading complete machine enterprises.

At this year's CIIF, an exhibition booth was particularly eye-catching — "Ten Guangdong Champions". ExDynamics, Zirliang, ZSquare, Leju, Qiantuo, Midea, XPeng, Honor, UBTECH, and Dobot. Ten complete machine enterprises rooted in the Greater Bay Area made their collective debut, each following its own technical route.

Image source: Southcn.com

Under-the-Surface Industrial Division of Labor

The "Ten Champions" are only the visible part on the surface. What is really worth noticing is the well-functioning urban division of labor under the surface.

Guangzhou is good at application integration and cross-border integration. It has formed an automotive industrial ecology composed of 10 complete vehicle enterprises and more than 1200 component enterprises. XPeng, GAC Group and other enterprises have entered the humanoid robot track across sectors, which also promotes the transfer of the original automotive supply chain, forming the feature of "automaker cross-border entry". It is worth mentioning that 40% to 50% of the humanoid robot supply chain overlaps with that of new energy vehicles.

At the same time, Guangzhou has advantages in simulation engines, system integration and provincial-level training platforms, which can provide support for robot deployment and integration.

Compared with Guangzhou, Shenzhen's advantage lies in its complete industrial chain, and it undertakes the dual core roles of "brain" and "ontology". For example, Nanshan District has realized "manufacturing a complete robot within one district", where scheme design, proofing testing and small-batch production can be completed within a radius of 1 kilometer. The "same-day delivery" ecosystem where orders placed in the morning can be delivered in the afternoon greatly shortens the iteration cycle.

The localization rate of core robot components exceeds 60%, and the localization rate of core components of leading humanoid robot enterprises exceeds 90%. In addition, Shenzhen has gathered a number of leading complete machine enterprises including UBTECH, Leju, Dobot, Qiantuo, and ZSquare.

Image source: Wind

Dongguan is mainly responsible for the "joints" and supporting links. Relying on its mature precision machining capabilities, it has achieved top-level performance in core supporting products such as servo motors, sensors, structural parts and wiring harnesses. At present, Dongguan has gathered more than 7000 robot-related enterprises, ranking third in China; among them, humanoid robot complete machine manufacturers are represented by Tianji Intelligence, Topstar, Dongguan Lingzhi Innovation and other enterprises.

Foshan is the city with the deepest manufacturing gene among the four cities, undertaking the core role of the physical base and mass production delivery of embodied intelligence, which is a key link to turn technology into real products. Relying on the two 400-billion-yuan industrial clusters of home appliances and equipment, 80% of the above-scale manufacturing enterprises have completed digital transformation, and factory production lines, smart home scenarios, urban operation and maintenance and other scenarios have become "natural test sites" for humanoid robots.

The four cities perform their own duties, like a team with clear division of labor, cooperating and coordinating with each other. Tan Min, Chief Brand Officer of UBTECH, said that it is the industrial chain of the Greater Bay Area that compresses the product feedback and iteration cycle to the extreme.

The Most Unique Development Strategy of the Greater Bay Area

The Greater Bay Area also has a unique development strategy that no other region in China has: the government helps enterprises "find business opportunities". While other regions usually support emerging industries by providing land, funds and tax incentives, the Greater Bay Area is more pragmatic — it actively finds "usage scenarios" for robots.

In terms of policies, Guangzhou once proposed that around public services, industrial manufacturing, special operations, elderly care services and other fields, it will promote manufacturing enterprises, industrial parks, public service and commercial places to open up or jointly build application scenarios, select 10 demonstration projects every year, with a maximum support of 1 million yuan for each project.

In Dongguan, the first embodied intelligence training ground has also been officially launched, with an initial investment of 50 million yuan from state-owned enterprises and an area of 5000 square meters, equipped with more than 50 heterogeneous ontologies and more than 100 data acquisition devices. Relevant officials said directly that they want to let algorithms run on production lines and models train in factories, so as to turn Dongguan's manufacturing advantages into first-mover advantages of scenario implementation.

Why make such great efforts? The reason is very simple: scenarios are king. Robots are not pure software, they must enter warehouses, factories and homes, accumulate data, expose problems and iterate capabilities in real tasks. Therefore, the most important role of the government and enterprises is not only to provide funds, but also to open up scenarios.

At present, many robots can perform shows and martial arts, but lack training grounds when they need to do real work. Whoever owns enough real scenarios first can run the "data flywheel" first. The Greater Bay Area has clearly realized this.

So, where is the most important scenario? Factories.

Since the beginning of this year, embodied intelligent robots have been accelerating their entry into factories, covering scenarios from express sorting to automobile manufacturing, 3C electronics to power battery production lines. Industrial manufacturing is exactly the most solid core competence of the Greater Bay Area.

Specifically, Dobot's products have been deployed in enterprises such as Valeo, Leapmotor, and Keboda, covering scenarios including new energy vehicles, 3C, high-end manufacturing, and daily chemical industries, and can undertake core processes such as material handling, precision assembly, and quality inspection.

As of the first half of 2026, Dobot has expanded 231 embodied intelligence customers in total, including nearly 100 industrial manufacturing customers.

Topstar's humanoid robot Xiaotuo has become China's first embodied intelligent robot applied in injection molding scenarios, and its quadruped robot Xingzai can perform autonomous inspection and execute operations in complex environments; flexible sorting and loading/unloading workstations, and embodied intelligent palletizing workstations have also achieved commercial delivery.

In terms of shipment volume, UBTECH sold 921 full-size embodied intelligent humanoid robots in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 1946.7%, and some industrial customers began to place repeated orders. Topstar signed orders for about 6800 industrial robots and shipped about 5500 units in the first half of the year, and the order volume of CNC machine tools increased by 34.34% year-on-year, directly benefiting from the processing demand for humanoid robot components.

Image source: UBTECH 2026 Semi-Annual Report

Leju sold 577 units of the Kuafu series in 2025, which was about 18 times that of the previous year, and its shipment volume of full-size biped humanoid robots ranked second in the world.

Looking at the entire Shenzhen Robot Valley: in the first half of 2026, the global shipment of humanoid robots was about 19100 units, more than 97% of which were made in China, and both UBTECH and Leju ranked among the top five in the world.

The increase in shipment volume has also enabled enterprises to achieve revenue growth of varying degrees in the first half of this year. The revenue of UBTECH, Dobot and Topstar in the first half of the year increased by 104.2%, 106.6% and 18.61% year-on-year respectively.

Combining these dimensions together, a clear path comes into view: factory deployment, large-scale shipment, and revenue realization.

While most enterprises in the industry are still doing prototype verification, leading enterprises in the Greater Bay Area have already run through the commercial closed loop from technology to products.

In other words, the Greater Bay Area can not only provide components for enterprises, but also directly tell them: which factory to go to and what work to do.

Conclusion

2026 is known as the "first year of mass production of humanoid robots".

XPeng IRON walking off the production line, UBTECH delivering 921 full-size humanoid robots with repeated customer purchases in the first half of the year, Dobot's embodied intelligence revenue soaring 20 times, Topstar shipping 5500 units in half a year, Leju's 10000-unit-level production line put into operation...

It is by no means accidental that these events happened intensively in the same year, on this land.

Looking back at the industrial history of smartphones: the reason why iPhone can be mass-produced in China on a large scale relies on the complete electronic supply chain in the Pearl River Delta and millions of industrial workers.

Today, humanoid robots are taking a similar path.

But the cards in the hands of the Greater Bay Area are better than before. Not only is the supply chain more complete, but it also has an extra trump card of "scenario + revenue".

The production line that XPeng IRON walked off may just be the prologue.

Note: The materials of this article are from official reports and public information, and the views are for reference only | Some images are from the Internet, please inform us to delete them if there is any infringement.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Yuan Media Hui", author: Xie Chunsheng, authorized by 36Kr for release.