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Robotics
TechTech Trends

China’s robots step into real-world roles, from cleaning to directing traffic

Robots appear in settings from dirty kitchens to dangerous steel mills as country pushes development of embodied AI

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X Square Robot CEO Wang Qian shows a robot that capable of picking up rubbish in Beijing on April 21. Photo: Reuters
Eunice Xu
Robots are beginning to reshape everyday life in China as the country accelerates its embrace of embodied artificial intelligence, handling tasks from cleaning homes and directing traffic to repairing equipment in hazardous factory settings.
Embodied AI refers to AI embedded in physical machines, such as robots, that can sense their environment, make decisions and act in the real world.

A cleaning service that launched in March on 58.com, a Chinese classifieds platform, pairs a human cleaner with a wheeled robot and an on-site engineer, according to the Chinese newspaper Economic Observer.

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The robot, from Shenzhen-based start-up X Square Robot, stands roughly 1.5 metres tall and has mechanical arms with gripping claws. The embodied AI company is backed by tech giants including ByteDance, Meituan, Xiaomi and Alibaba Group Holding, owner of the South China Morning Post.

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Humanoid traffic police robots deployed on the streets of China’s tech hub Hangzhou

Humanoid traffic police robots deployed on the streets of China’s tech hub Hangzhou

Each session runs three hours and costs 149 yuan (US$22), the same price as a standard human-only session, according to the report, citing an online comment. The robot handles repetitive tasks such as wiping tables and cleaning floors, while the human cleaner tackles harder-to-reach spots, scraping grease from crevices and removing mould from tile grout. One cleaner paired with a robot said the machine could handle about 30 per cent of the workload, according to the Economic Observer’s report.

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