A humanoid robot conducts box-carrying training at a data collection pre-training center for humanoid robots in Hefei, east China's Anhui Province, Dec. 4, 2025. (Xinhua/Zhang Duan)

The 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC) will be held in Beijing from August 19 to 23, featuring more than 300 exhibiting companies and over 2,000 exhibits, organizers announced at a press conference on Monday, as China's robotics industry, which accounts for 90 percent of global humanoid robot shipments, continues its rapid expansion that is increasingly benefiting the global industrial chain.

This year's conference has secured the support of nearly 30 international organizations, including the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the International Federation of Robotics, the World Federation of Engineering Organizations and the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, with international guests accounting for 30 percent of speakers at the main forum, Zhao Yunfeng, vice president and secretary-general of the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), said at the press conference.

The number of exhibitors is up 36 percent from last year, while exhibits and debut products are expected to rise 27 percent and 21 percent respectively, with more than 150 new products making their premiere, according to Zhao. 

The expanding scale of the conference mirrors the leapfrog development of China's robotics industry. China has been the world's largest industrial robot market for 13 consecutive years, with domestic brands' share of the home market exceeding 50 percent, while the supply capacity of key components such as reducers, servo systems and controllers has been significantly enhanced, Xu Xiaolan, president of the CIE, told the press conference.

In the humanoid robot sector, China has built a complete industrial chain spanning materials, core components, system integration, scenario operation and data services. In 2025, Chinese humanoid robots recorded explosive growth with 90 percent of global shipments and more than 330 models, and in the first quarter of 2026, exports surged 210 percent year-on-year, becoming "a new calling card of Chinese high-end manufacturing exports," Xu said.

Recalling the first WRC in 2015, when China had only a handful of robot makers and relied on imports for more than 90 percent of core components, Xu said that in just 11 years, the country has become one of the world's most competitive innovation hubs for robotics. Over the same period, the conference's offline attendance has grown from 50,000 to 271,000, and online participation has gone from 65,000 to 52 million.

The momentum is also reflected in official data. In the first five months of 2026, the operating revenue of China's major robot enterprises exceeded 90 billion yuan ($13.26 billion), up 26.9 percent year-on-year, with average annual growth topping 20 percent over the past five years, about 5 percentage points higher than during the 13th Five-Year Plan period (2016-20), Hao Lishun, an official with China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said at the press conference. 

China's humanoid robot shipment leadership is underpinned by a mature, full-chain industrial ecosystem rather than mere assembly advantages, and the country sits firmly in the global first tier in terms of deployment speed and cost control, Wang Peng, an associate researcher at the Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Monday. 

The strongest link of the industrial chain lies in full-chain supporting manufacturing and rapid iteration, as companies can quickly optimize products by tapping the country's massive local application scenarios, forming a unique industrial ecosystem advantage, Wang said.

Echoing Wang, Chen Jing, vice president of the Technology and Strategy Research Institute, told the Global Times on Monday that China's strengths in system integration and mass manufacturing are genuine, with its mature supply chain pushing the price of some humanoid robots down to 98,000 yuan, far more affordable than overseas rivals.

Challenges remain on the path toward large-scale commercial use, Chen noted, as fragmented application scenarios mean robots must be trained separately for each setting, while embodied AI models' autonomous decision-making in complex, unstructured environments needs further improvement. High-performance computing chips still rely on overseas suppliers, and high-end harmonic reducers, torque sensors and precision servo motors lag top international levels in precision and durability, though domestic substitution is accelerating, Chen said.

Notably, this year's conference will for the first time feature four themed days - a "Release Day," a "Procurement Day," a "Developer Day" and "Public Open Days." Both analysts said the move marks the industry's shift from technology showcasing to a pragmatic new phase of securing orders and building open ecosystems. Mass-produced humanoid models, industrial deployment cases, progress in embodied AI models, supply chain cost-reduction solutions and discussions between Chinese and foreign companies on standards and open-source ecosystems are among the highlights to watch.

The WRC has grown into a global gathering for innovation, industrial promotion, application and international cooperation in robotics, Xu said. According to the observers, China's fast-growing robotics industry has, through expanding exports, deepening supply chain cooperation and open ecosystem building, created new opportunities for global innovation cooperation and injected fresh momentum into the world economy.