China Unveils First Mall Dedicated Exclusively to Robots
In the heart of Beijing's E-Town district, a four-story shopping center dedicated to robots has recently opened its doors. Known as the Robot Mall, it showcases over 100 robots from more than 40 brands, including Ubtech Robotics and Unitree Robotics.
The Robot Mall's opening coincides with two major robotics events in the city this month - the 2025 World Robot Conference and the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games. Over 200 robotics companies will showcase their latest research and development breakthroughs in over 1,500 exhibits during the conference.
The World Humanoid Robot Games, scheduled from August 14 to August 17, will test humanoid robots' skills in various areas such as athletics, soccer, dance, handling materials, drug sorting, and other performance-based and scenario-driven challenges. More than 100 teams have registered to compete.
China's national strategy for the robotics industry is a whole-of-nation, state-coordinated approach focused on becoming the world's largest robotics market by 2025 and beyond. This strategy is driven by massive government investment (about 1 trillion yuan or $138 billion over two decades) and includes targets such as producing 10,000 humanoid robots by 2025, accelerating industrial and logistics automation, and expanding robotics into healthcare, eldercare, agriculture, and smart infrastructure.
Key features of China's strategy include an emphasis on humanoid robots, AI-integrated systems, sensors, actuators, and motion control technologies as critical development areas. Strong vertical integration and local government subsidy races are also employed to foster robotics champions. Extensive deployment at scale and rapid iterative improvement through real-world applications are enabled by China's large talent pool in computer science and AI and powerful manufacturing capacity.
In comparison, the U.S. strategy tends to be more decentralized and innovation-driven, relying heavily on private sector leadership, startups, and federal research funding. The U.S. focuses on cutting-edge AI software, robotics in defense and space exploration, and advanced manufacturing automation, but lacks the scale of state-backed deployment subsidies and coordinated local government competition seen in China.
The Robot Mall includes a themed restaurant with robot waiters and chefs. Visitors can watch robots play soccer or Chinese chess, interact with robot dogs, and meet animatronic versions of historical figures like Isaac Newton, Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and Li Bai. A talking humanoid replica of Albert Einstein is priced at 700,000 yuan.
Robots at the mall range in price from 2,000 yuan to several million yuan. As Wang Yifan, a director at the mall, stated, relying solely on robotics companies is not enough for robots to enter thousands of households. Instead, he believes that a combination of government investment, research, and real-world applications will be key to achieving this goal.
Beijing is planning a one trillion yuan ($137 billion) fund to support AI and robotics startups, further demonstrating China's commitment to its robotics industry. As the robotics sector continues to grow and evolve, it will be interesting to see how China's strategy unfolds and how it compares to other advanced economies.
- Gizmodo might highlight the integration of artificial intelligence in various robots showcased at the Robot Mall, given the increasing focus on AI-integrated systems in China's technology strategy for the robotics industry.
- With the advancements in technology and an emphasis on humanoid robots, it's not unlikely that Beijing's growing collection of robots could soon include more sophisticated, sophisticated humanoid replicas like the Albert Einstein model, priced at a significant sum.
- As the future unfolds, the technology landscape could see a fierce competition between China's whole-of-nation strategy and the US's decentralized, innovation-driven approach, particularly in the growth and development of the robotics sector.
