China’s inaugural training facility for heterogeneous humanoid robots will become fully operational in July. Known as the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, it occupies over 5,000 square meters in Shanghai’s Zhangjiang area. It aims to catalyze the sharing and utilization of large-scale data among robot developers.
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Global Times reports that over 100 robot types from over a dozen companies are already undergoing training, aiming to establish a robust database for industrial, service, medical, and agricultural applications.
Massive data generation and shared ecosystem for robots
According to Xu Bin, general manager of the center, the facility strives to address key challenges in humanoid robot R&D: shared technologies, industry ecosystems, and solutions for critical application scenarios.
“We established the center to enable large-scale data sharing and utilization, empowering the entire industry,” Global Times quotes Xu as saying. Because different manufacturers’ humanoid robots vary in design and functional modules, they produce heterogeneous datasets that are often incompatible.
In its initial phase, the center will train robots on approximately 45 fundamental or “atomic” skills—actions like grasping, picking, placing, and transporting. “During these tasks, the robots are expected to learn from repeated motion data gathered by their sensors,” said Yang Zhengye, director of market systems at the center.
The facility compiles data on how robots accomplish step-by-step processes by simulating everyday and professional tasks. This data is then fed back into model development to sharpen the robots’ ability to perform more complex actions autonomously.
Bridging gaps in embodied intelligence
To gather these motion datasets, a team of human trainers continuously performs repetitive actions, sometimes hundreds of repetitions each day, so that the robots can replicate the motions and improve. According to The Paper, minute variations in an object’s shape or angle create unique data points that help the robots adapt to slight environmental changes.
The training center focuses on 10 major application scenarios, including industrial and domestic tasks and tourism services. Those tasks are broken down into subtasks like folding clothes, assembling or organizing items, and cleaning heavy machinery in hazardous environments.
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The center is currently in a testing phase, generating 20,000 to 30,000 data entries daily. Once fully operational, daily output could reach 50,000 data entries, with a target of surpassing 10 million real-machine data entries within the year.
Future collaboration and “Super Brain” model
One of the center’s long-term objectives is to create a data exchange platform so robot developers can share scenario-specific data, such as home appliances or healthcare, to curb duplication.
“In the future, the data collected from diverse humanoid robots will be used to develop a general-purpose embodied intelligence foundation model,” Yang told Global Times. By unifying data, a “super brain” model could guide robots from various manufacturers, enabling multi-robot collaboration and collective upgrades.
China’s surge in humanoid robot innovation builds on the country’s broader push into advanced AI applications. Stakeholders hope the wide availability of cross-company data from heterogeneous robots will speed up R&D while cutting overhead costs.
As these humanoid robots become more adept at everyday manual tasks in factories and public-facing services, their potential to replace or complement human labor grows.
Accelerating growth for robots
The training center exemplifies how China is racing to cultivate an ecosystem for advanced robotics and AI. By systematically collecting and refining motion data across numerous robot platforms, engineers can refine algorithms and share breakthroughs far more rapidly than in a siloed environment.
According to Xu, the facility also represents “foundational infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence,” effectively bridging hardware, software, and big-data collection in one continuous pipeline. Industry observers are closely watching the center, which is slated to reach full capacity this summer.
Humanoid robots undergo training at the National and Local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center in Shanghai. Photo: Courtesy of the National and Local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center
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China's first heterogeneous humanoid robot training facility, where humanoid robots in a variety of types are trained for their wide applications in different daily life and workplace scenarios, will be officially begin operation in July, expected to enable large-scale data sharing and utilization of heterogeneous humanoid robots, empowering the entire industry.
Run by the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, the facility is located in Zhangjiang area, Shanghai, and occupies an area of over 5,000 square meters, with more than 100 types of robots - the largest number of varieties in the country - from over a dozen enterprises being trained. Through simulating everyday and workplace scenarios at the training center, data are produced and collected while the robots are being trained to establish a database for the training of more robots and large models widely applied in industrial, service, medical, agriculture and other fields, the Global Times learned from the center on Monday.
According to Xu Bin, general manager of the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, regarded as foundational infrastructure for the development of artificial intelligence, the center is designed to drive and support the development of the humanoid robot industry by addressing key challenges, including developing shared technologies, building ecosystems, creating representative products, and implementing solutions in critical application scenarios, The Paper reported.
"We established the center to enable large-scale data sharing and utilization, empowering the entire industry," Xu said, explaining that heterogeneous humanoid robots are robots with varying structures and functional modules. Robots developed by different manufacturers differ in aspects such as the number of joints and motor power consumption, leading to distinct data sets that are not universally applicable.
During the first phase of the project, the robots will be trained with approximately 45 atomic skills such as grasping, picking, placing and transporting for establishing an atomic skill library for robotic manipulation tasks in specific scenarios, such as industrial and service scenarios, Yang Zhengye, director of market systems of the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, told the Global Times on Monday.
"The embodied robots being trained at the center are expected to accomplish more complex tasks requiring a sequence of actions based on their autonomous judgments formed through searching and matching the data collected through training," Yang said.
In order to accomplish a task, the robots will be trained to understand human's instructions, break the task down and then finish it by using visual and motion data, he said.
At the center, humanoid robots continuously practice actions such as "grasping" by replicating movement data collected from human trainers.
According to a data collector, generating data, collecting data, augmenting data, and analyzing data are the most fundamental core tasks at the training center. A single action may need to be repeated up to 600 times a day by a data collector for the robots to learn from. For humans, the action of "grasping" is simple, but for robots, even small differences in the size, shape and placement angle of the object being grasped will generate different data, The Paper reported.
At the training center, robots of various sizes simultaneously undergo training for different scenarios and tasks, focusing on 10 key scenarios, including industrial, domestic, and tourism services. These tasks are broken down into specific actions, such as folding clothes, picking up and moving objects, organizing shelves, and cleaning large equipment in dangerous environments.
According to Yang, the training center is currently undergoing testing and adjustments, and is capable of generating 20,000 to 30,000 data entries daily. It is expected to enter full operation in July, with a daily output of up to 50,000 data entries. It is expected that the collection of over 10 million real-machine data entries will be achieved within the year.
In the future, the center plans to establish a data exchange platform, allowing robot companies to share data from different scenarios - such as home appliances or healthcare - reducing duplication and greatly improving efficiency.
Training data from diverse humanoid robots will be used to develop a general-purpose embodied intelligence foundation model. Under the command of this "super brain," robots from different manufacturers and of different forms will be able to collaborate efficiently and upgrade together, Yang said.