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Editor's Note:
The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan called for building a modern industrial system, consolidating the foundation of the real economy, and accelerating high-level technological self-reliance and self-strength to lead the development of new quality productive forces. These goals have provided clear direction for industrial transformation and upgrading across various sectors, while injecting strong momentum into high-quality development.
The Global Times has launched a new column titled "China Industry Close-up." Focusing on the creation of a new development pattern, the column will delve deeply into vivid examples of industrial transformation and upgrading across various sectors, aiming to showcase China's innovation-driven and high-quality development. This is the first half of the second installment of the series
Cao Jing, a truck driver based in Shenzhen, South China's Guangdong Province, carefully secured a humanoid robot at the research and development center of a local robotics company on Friday. With steady hands, he and other technical staff first folded the robot and placed it into a black box filled with cushioning pads, then moved the box into the back of his 4.2-meter-long truck, adjusting the straps and padding to keep it steady for the journey. Once everything was firmly in place, he climbed into the cab and set off along the Liuxian Road in Shenzhen's Nanshan district.
Half an hour later, he arrived at the Shenzhen Nursing Home, where the robot would soon begin its new role -serving as a cheerful companion for the elderly while continuously improving itself through daily real-scenario applications.
Cao, a driver for freight company Huolala's enterprise service, told the Global Times that since March and April, he can get four or five such delivery orders a day during peak times, mostly around Liuxian Road, a sharp increase from last year. "The robots I transport have also become much more diverse — from company R&D prototypes and household robots being delivered to customers' homes for testing, to robots designed for all kinds of competition, and even those fighting robots that compete in the octagon," Cao said as he waited at a traffic light on Liuxian Road.
The Liuxian Road is located within the 30-minute supporting circle in Shenzhen's "Robot Valley," an idea that Chinese official highlighted at the 2026 Summer Davos in June.
Just a decade ago, some of this area was little more than old industrial zones, construction sites and urban villages. Today, the Robot Valley — stretching about 10 kilometers along Liuxian Road and covering an area of approximately 28 square kilometers — has transformed into a thriving hub. The corridor is lined on both sides with robot makers, component suppliers, software algorithm firms, as well as universities and research institutions.
The area is now home to over 200 companies across the robotics industrial chain, including more than 25 humanoid robot complete-machine manufacturers, 32 specialized and sophisticated "little giant" enterprises, and 15 listed companies, according to local authorities.
Walking through parts of the valley now feels like stepping into a sci-fi film, where it is common to encounter a "blinking" humanoid robot waving hands around the corner, watch a lively parade of dancing robot dogs and sip a coffee made by humanoid robot, or enjoy a dish prepared by robotic arms.
The rise of this high-tech futuristic valley offers a glimpse into the prowess of China's embodied artificial intelligence (AI) industry, one of the industries of the future identified in China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) that has drawn intensive global limelight. The valley also epitomizes China's homegrown innovation capabilities, where milestone technological breakthroughs, coupled with rapid iteration, complete industrial chains, and real-world application scenarios converge to turn cutting-edge research into tangible products at remarkable "Chinese speed."
'Half-hour circle'
When Global Times reporters visited Shenzhen robotic firm EngineAI's intelligent manufacturing base in the Robot Valley, several humanoid robots were effortlessly demonstrating high-difficulty moves such as front flips. Some of the T800robots, just backed from the Ultimate Robot Knock-out Legend (URKL), or what organizers billed as the world's first free humanoid robot fighting competition in July, were "battered and bruised."
"In robot combat, we must always be prepared for high-intensity real-world testing," Li Hao, a motion control algorithm engineer at EngineAI, told the Global Times. "Real combat takes place in a continuous, highly uncertain environment full of interference. The real challenge is ensuring that humanoid robots can continuously maintain stability under complex conditions such as moving, turning, punching, absorbing force, and shifts in the center of gravity. In this context, the pace of research and development (R&D), testing, and adjustment is particularly fast — which is why the half-hour industrial circle matters so much to us."
Li gave a vivid example of how his daily routine fully leverages the valley's tight integration of R&D, testing, and manufacturing.
"In the morning, I finish modifying the algorithm at the R&D center. A 25-minute drive then takes me to the production line at the valley's Honghualing manufacturing base for real-machine testing. By the afternoon, I can rush back to the R&D center to upgrade and optimize the algorithm again," he explained.
Since March, Li has been taking Muay Thai lessons together with other core engineers. While he has grown into something of a "Muay Thai master," this proximity of the Robot Valley also allows him to "communicate with robots" every day, optimizing intelligent recognition algorithms and motion strategies based on their performance in real combat. "This is like teaching a baby, and we're training the robots to grow stronger while becoming smarter, day by day," he noted.
Throughout the robot manufacturing, another critical step — robot prototyping — further highlights the unique strength of China's robotics industry.
Pang Jianxin, vice president of UBTECH, a Hong Kong-listed humanoid robot company also headquartered at the Robot Valley, told the Global Times that the valley holds a clear advantage in rapid prototyping and fast product iteration — an edge that "leads the world."
"During prototyping, the volume for production is usually very small, and many companies are reluctant to take on such orders. However, in Shenzhen and the broader Pearl River Delta, there are a large number of supply chain enterprises that are willing to accompany start-ups on new tracks and new products. Based on the design, they can leverage their experience to select suitable materials or processes, quickly complete sample manufacturing, and then rapidly verify the results. This is crucial for hardware R&D, especially for innovative hardware and intelligent robots," Pang explained.
In overseas markets such as the US, the typical process from turning an idea into a physical product, to producing samples and entering the small-scale market, and finally reaching mass production and making debut, could take five-to-ten times longer than the Chinese counterparts, Liu Shaoshan, director of the Embodied AI at the Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society, told the Global Times. Liu has worked in the US for a bunch of years before returning to Shenzhen two years ago.
"Robotics is an industry where speed almost decides everything - as half of it is manufacturing, and the other half is about R&D," Liu told the Global Times.
According to Liu, in the US, it can take a week just for industrial chain communication to implement a hardware change or upgrade, and most of their suppliers are located outside the country, which further delays the process. By contrast, the complete supply chain of Shenzhen's Robot Valley enables highly efficient communication — "in some cases, suppliers can even arrive on site within half an hour."
The Global Times also noticed a telling scene during its week-long visit to Shenzhen's Robot Valley: the company visited on the first day turned out to be the exact supplier of the company visited on the second day, while the third-day institute was itself a key testing partner of the second-day company — further underscoring the tightly integrated industrial ecosystem that makes rapid iteration possible.
For embodied intelligence manufactures, the Robot Valley is home to a full range of upstream suppliers — from perception systems such as tactile sensors and LiDAR, to actuation systems including servo motors and joint modules, and core components like robotic arms and dexterous hands. Meanwhile, downstream, large-scale manufacturers in the auto, new energy and electronic industries stand ready to put these robots into broader real-world applications, industry insiders noted.
"Many of the embodied robotics companies in the valley are our customers. Some of them — such as UBTECH, X Square and PUDU — are within a 20-minute drive of our headquarters. It is not an exaggeration to say that if you want to build a robot in Shenzhen's Robot Valley, you can easily find the suppliers you need nearby," Zhao Qiyu, marketing director of publicly listed robotics and AI vision company Orbbec, told the Global Times.
Meanwhile, as China's robotics industry continues to expand, downstream customers are developing increasingly specialized and specific requirements, encouraging companies like Orbbec to launch new products that address these evolving needs, Zhao said.
She cited one of the company's newly launched products, EGO, a head-mounted data collection device designed to capture first-person perspectives and real-world task flows. By collecting multimodal data related to environmental semantics, spatial scale and long-horizon task chains, the device helps generate high-quality training data for downstream embodied AI model companies.
'DeepSeek' moment in robotics industry
Pang from UBTECH recalled firsthand how he has witnessed the drastic change in Shenzhen's Robot Valley and the broader picture of the Chinese robotic industry during the past 10 years.
"When we started the company a decade ago, what we saw from the window was just old industrial base, some construction sites and villages. We were like marching through a dark desert, where even the positions of the stars and the moon could not be seen clearly," Pang said.
He noted that at that time, the most well-known robotics companies on the international stage were the US-based Boston Dynamics, which wooed the world with its signature backflips and parkour moves, and Honda from Japan, whose humanoid robot ASIMO became a global icon. In the Chinese market, domestic companies specialized in humanoid robots "were extremely scarce."
However, a decade later, China's robotics industry has undergone what industry insiders described as "transformative changes," shifting from a follower to a frontrunner. The once "valley of entrepreneurship" has also transformed into a world-class "highland of innovation," Liu Zhufu, deputy general manager of Dobot Robotics, which was founded in 2015, told the Global Times.
Today, China has firmly established itself in the world's first tier of the robotics industry, with Chinese robotics companies having increasingly become a must-visit destination for foreign heads of state during their trips to China - as vividly exemplified by Slovak President Peter Pellegrini's tour of a robotics mall in Beijing's Yizhuang in July and President of Myanmar Min Aung Hlaing' visit to the Unitree Robotics in June.
According to data released by Beijing CCID Publishing & Media Co, China accounted for 84.7 percent of global humanoid robot shipments in 2025, meaning that for every 10 humanoid robots sold worldwide, more than 8 carried the "Made in China" label.
The institute Liu Shaoshan works for has also received a number of officials from Europe, including former UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper, as well as corporate delegates from Europe, Japan and South Korea in recent months.
"Many foreign visitors, during their inspections in Shenzhen, would ask me similar questions — why have cutting-edge technologies such as AI and embodied intelligence developed particularly rapidly in China? What can they learn, and what role should their governments play in accelerating this development?"
The answers, according to Liu, lie not in a single technological breakthrough, but in a combination of long-term strategic planning, industrial cultivation, and ecosystem building. "It is precisely thanks to the forward-looking layout and top-level design that China has gradually formed a complete chain spanning basic research, core technology breakthroughs, and industrial applications, while gaining a first-mover advantage in the real-world deployment of robots," Liu stressed.
"China has been promoting the development of the humanoid robotics industry with unprecedented strategic resolve. And the inclusion of intelligent AI into the 15th Five-Year plan (2026-30) carries a lot of significance: it is not only a policy dividend but also offers long-term strategic guidance. It will guide more resources toward core technology breakthroughs and industrial ecosystem building, accelerating the process of humanoid robots moving from the laboratory to factories and into households," Pang said.
When it comes to the local practice echoing this top-level design, the authorities in Shenzhen's Nanshan District have so far opened a total of 68 public scenarios for robot applications, aiming to open up the full chain of "technology R&D - scenario verification - commercial promotion," the Global Times learned.
Encouraged by these developments, industry insiders in the Robot Valley are increasingly optimistic that a "DeepSeek moment" for China's homegrown robotics industry may arrive sooner rather than later.
This moment may not come in a single instant, but a process accumulated from countless "world's firsts" - fueled by continuous homegrown technological breakthroughs and the constant expansion of application scenarios across China.
"Maybe one day, robots will be able to produce robots right here in our manufacturing base—that could be a defining 'DeepSeek moment'," Yao Qiyuan, co-founder of EngineAI, told the Global Times.
。 “每月损失500个终端”自从今年春天首次运抵乌克兰投入使用以来，SpaceX公司制造的“星链”系统终端一直是乌克兰军方的重要通信手段。美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）称，到目前为止，约有2万个“星链”终端已捐赠给乌克兰。按照马斯克的说法，当前乌克兰有2.5万个“星链”终端在运行。美国“连线”网站称，在被问及乌军使用这些装置的比例时，乌克兰副总理费多罗夫表示，“大部分用于民用目的，其中包括重新连接医院、互联网服务供应商和一些拥有外国客户的科技公司。”但其他消息来源将“星链”终端视为乌军的强大工具。美国《防务新闻》16日称，“星链”对于乌军作战行动发挥了重要作用。例如它能协助前线的侦察无人机操作员瞄准俄罗斯关键装备。英国《伦敦时报》称，“星链”帮助乌军使用无人机瞄准并摧毁俄罗斯坦克。美国《华盛顿邮报》则形容说，“星链”改变了战争，“‘星链’在喀秋莎的炮火下工作”。当然，乌军拥有的“星链”终端也不断遭到损失。CNN称，SpaceX公司发送给五角大楼的文件显示，乌军司令瓦莱里·扎鲁日尼在7月向马斯克提出了一份此前未曾报道的直接请求，要求再增加近8000个“星链”终端。
二 | 扎鲁日尼称赞“星链”的“特殊效用”，但承认“每月约有500个终端在战斗中被摧毁”，要求马斯克为乌克兰军事和情报部门补充6200个终端。
三 | 此外，西方媒体也普遍报道称，从9月底开始，乌克兰一线部队的“星链”终端大范围失效，有分析认为可能是俄罗斯的电子干扰所致。
四 | “星链”有多“烧钱”？SpaceX公司的“星链”系统由2200多颗低轨道卫星组成。
五 | 马斯克不久前在社交媒体上公开宣称，“在乌克兰运营的‘星链’系统已花费了SpaceX公司8000万美元，到今年年底将超过1亿美元。除非五角大楼提供后续经费，否则该公司可能会停止为乌克兰服务。”从账面上计算，SpaceX公司向乌克兰提供的“星链”终端包括两笔费用：“星链”终端的自身费用和运营费。据称，发送到乌克兰的两种型号“星链”终端成本分别为1500美元和2500美元，但这个价格比“星链”网站上的商用型号要贵得多。根据SpaceX公司给五角大楼发布的信件，之前给乌克兰的2万个终端中的绝大多数都从外部来源获得全部或部分资金。《华盛顿邮报》称，根据新获得的文件，这些捐助主要来自美国、英国和波兰，其中最大的单一终端贡献者是波兰，提供了近9000个终端。
六 | 美国提供了近1700个终端。其他贡献者包括非政府组织和众筹方式。但与手机等电子产品相似，最昂贵的开销是持续的服务费用。CNN称，乌克兰大多数终端签订的是每月500美元的套餐，但SpaceX公司表示，实际向乌克兰方面提供的都是顶级的每月4500美元的套餐服务，而且该公司已经承担了乌克兰“星链”终端约70%的服务费。
七 | 美军最终将买单？CNN称，按照计划，“星链”星座一共将要部署1.2万颗卫星，发射卫星、建设地面站、提供服务都将耗费大量资金，以目前的用户规模，“星链”系统还很难维持盈利。在这样的背景下，马斯克“在商言商”，要求不再向乌克兰提供免费的通信服务并不难理解，但他此前公开要求五角大楼为此买单的做法还是引起了广泛议论——为何他认定美军愿意为此掏钱？除了当前“星链”在俄乌冲突中发挥的重要作用，让乌克兰和背后提供支持的五角大楼难以割舍等因素外，美军自身也是“星链”最大的用户。美国“太空新闻”网站13日称，美国军方对“星链”通信服务的需求持续上升。美国空军在最近的文件中表示，“星链”是唯一能够满足美国在欧洲和非洲部队需求的供应商。例如总部设在英国的美国空军第48战斗机联队要求为英国拉肯希思空军基地提供“星链”通信服务，该基地是F-35隐形战斗机在欧洲的主要部署地点。
八 | 此外，“星链”还被用于多国军事演习。美国中央司令部海军司令布拉德·库珀中将表示，美国和盟国部队最近在葡萄牙海岸举行的北约演习中，约120架无人飞行器、无人船只和水下航行器通过“星链”通信服务被整合到同一个网络中。库珀说，美国海军明年将在波斯湾和红海部署多达100艘无人水面舰艇进行海上监视。随着美军无人机、无人舰艇收集的数据越来越多，对通信的需求将越来越大，以便及时上传和分析信息。他表示，该地区的美国和盟军计划明年使用“星链”。因为北约在欧洲的演习证明，“星链”的通信效果非常好，数据传输速度比以前的系统快得多，而且成本更低。美军对于“星链”系统的需求日益迫切，五角大楼很可能希望借助俄乌冲突积累使用经验，至于每月数千万美元的花费，与美国对乌克兰的数百亿美元援助相比，实在算不了什么。
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