With the rapid development of science and technology, humanoid robots are gradually moving from science fiction to reality and becoming an important force in promoting industrial change.
This article will comprehensively interpret the development trend of China’s humanoid robot industry in 2026.
From the perspective of application fields, humanoid robots start in industry and end up in household scenarios.
The order from weak to strong according to the generalization requirements of the algorithm is: industrial manufacturing＜commercial services＜extreme operations＜household services.
As a highly structured scenario, industrial manufacturing is the first “training ground” to be implemented; commercial services are semi-structured environments, which require increased real-time performance of algorithms; extreme operations are unstructured high-risk scenarios that require algorithms to be robust and fault-tolerant; home services are completely unstructured scenarios, and the demand for algorithm generalization has reached its peak.
Taking Tesla as an example, it started from industrial scenarios and gradually evolved to home and commercial scenarios.
In terms of market size, China’s humanoid industry is expected to be close to 3 trillion yuan in 2040.
In 2025-2030, it will be mainly used in industrial scenarios to provide repetitive services; in 2031-2035, it is expected to be deployed in commercial service scenarios and provide humanized services; in 2035 and later, it may enter family life scenes to meet the needs of daily family life.
Musk once predicted that the ratio of humanoid robots to humans will reach 3:1-5:1 in the future, and there will be 20-30 billion humanoid robots in the world.
In terms of commercialization process, it is expected to have commercial value in some scenarios in 2027.
Driven by the investment of technology giants and advances in artificial intelligence technology, humanoid robot products and cost iterations are accelerating.
From a product perspective, Tesla’s humanoid robots have rapidly iterated around joints, dexterous hand solutions, algorithm training, etc. in 24 years. From a cost perspective, the accelerated iteration of the industrial chain has reduced production costs.
Humanoid robots will first iterate in areas with high labor costs and low task complexity, and the “China supply chain” + “high-cost scenario” will achieve the highest volume.
In terms of development status, in terms of funding, investment and financing are active, and governments around the world continue to invest.
In the first three quarters of 2025, new primary market financing events in the domestic robot industry doubled year-on-year, and governments around the world invested nearly US$100 million in robot projects.
In terms of policy, domestic central and local support policies have been implemented one after another, and central policies promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and the real economy.
In terms of products, the humanoid has moved from prototype to small batch commercialization. It is expected that 2025 will be the first year of mass production and 2026 will be the year of industrial commercialization.
Technically, hardware tends to converge, and the brain is the key to activating large-scale industrialization.
At present, an important factor limiting large-scale mass production is brain evolution. Humanoid robot “brain” technology is centered on large models, and typical embodied intelligent large models at home and abroad are constantly emerging.
In terms of the development prospects of the industrial chain, the logical architecture of the robot is composed of “brain” + “cerebellum” + limbs.
The “brain” is responsible for sensing the outside world and simulating the human thinking and decision-making process. The “cerebellum” is responsible for movement control. The ontology performs tasks based on the movement planning of the cerebellum layer.
Algorithmically, there are traces of the maturity of the “brain”, and multiple technical routes are being explored in parallel. In the future, breakthroughs in multi-modality, speed, generalization and other aspects are needed; the core technology of “cerebellum” has evolved from a model-based control method to a learning-based control method, but data collection is a constraint.
In terms of hardware, heat dissipation, lightweighting, and longevity are the focus of subsequent iterations. Key components such as joint actuators, dexterous hands, motors, reducers, and sensors have their own development trends and challenges.
In short, the humanoid robot industry has broad prospects, but it also faces many challenges.
In the future, with the continuous advancement of technology and the gradual maturity of the market, humanoid robots are expected to achieve large-scale application in all scenarios and become an important force to fill the labor gap and improve social production efficiency.
