Chinese humanoid robots demonstrated the ability to fold laundry, make sandwiches, and dance at the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai.
The showcase highlights China's rapid advancement in embodied AI and its goal to integrate service robots into the daily lives of consumers. By moving beyond industrial automation, these companies aim to prove that humanoid machines can navigate and manipulate unstructured home and retail environments.
The event opened on May 31, 2026 [1], [2]. During the demonstrations, robots from companies including Unitree Robotics and KEENON Robotics performed a variety of complex everyday tasks. These included retail assistance and the preparation of food, signaling a shift toward practical, consumer-facing applications of artificial intelligence [1], [3].
China currently maintains a dominant position in the hardware supply chain for these machines. Reports indicate that China ships 90% of global humanoid robot units [1]. This manufacturing scale allows the country to iterate on hardware and software benchmarks more rapidly than international competitors.
The WAIC venue served as a testing ground for these robots to interact with the public. The focus of the exhibition was to showcase how embodied AI—AI that has a physical body and can interact with the physical world—can be applied to labor-intensive household chores [2], [3].
While some reports varied on the specific weekday of the opening, the primary records establish the start date as May 31, 2026 [1], [2]. The demonstrations are part of a broader strategic push to lead the global market in both the production and the intelligent operation of humanoid systems [1].
“China ships 90% of global humanoid robot units”
The scale of China's humanoid robot exports, combined with the transition from industrial to service-oriented tasks, suggests a move toward the mass commercialization of domestic robotics. By controlling 90% of the global shipping volume, China is positioned to set the global hardware standards for the industry, potentially creating a dependency for other nations on Chinese robotics infrastructure.
