China's humanoids go to the carnival: a weekend in Shanghai
On the outskirts of Shanghai, an R&D hub hosting 100-plus robotics firms threw a public robot carnival: kids buy mini robot dogs while humanoids do drunken boxing and fold shirts. It is entertainment with a strategy behind it. Embodied AI was a pillar of China's latest five-year plan, and nearly 90% of the 13,000-plus humanoids shipped globally last year were made in China. The softer side of an industrial push, and a reminder that China's bet on human form is running ahead of the skeptical West.