Ahead of the World Robotics Conference (WRC) on August 18th at 19:00, the team arrived at the permanent venue—the Park of Intelligent Robot Innovation in the Yizhuang district of Beijing. This event marks its 11th edition, with the old Hall C replaced, and over 500 speakers are scheduled to present.
As darkness fell, workers were still engaged in construction, and the booths remained lively: staff surrounded robots and equipment for final debugging before the opening. In the central lobby, Galaxy General will host a sub-forum the following day, while personnel ate packed lunches and made revisions to PowerPoint presentations.
In Hall C, employees from the Lumming Robot booth looked exhausted. In Hall B, the robot Zhongqing rehearsed its boxer routine, attracting attention from photographers from all sides. Even before the official opening, the booth attracted a crowd of onlookers, which was a double blessing for neighbors like Star Dynasty, whose demonstration sorting process attracted visitors but did not retain them for long.
Analyzing the overall picture, it is evident that the current WRC demonstrates shifts beyond simple performer comparison. The first change is the scale of the booths: funding is abundant, evidenced by a 138% increase in robotics funding events from January to June 2025. Nevertheless, most robotics companies are cautiously spending on media, preferring to allocate funds to events such as the Spring Festival Gala, WAIC, and WRC itself.
This year, Unitree and Starship Navigator occupied central positions, building mezzanines, while less prominent companies were placed in the tent of Hall D. The second key observation concerns the theme: almost every robot has a specific function and personality—whether it is a courier sorter, a boxer, a chef, or a barista. Nearly every company created a realistic scene: Star Dynasty presented a logistics sorting line, and DexForce presented a phone inspection line.
The industry language this year is shifting towards practical work and value creation, rather than just movement and dancing. Since AgiBot announced the creation of 15,000 embodied robots, and Unitree announced 18,000 units, old narratives can no longer sustain valuations, forcing capital to question the profitability of robots, marking a transition from breakthrough technologies to value verification. Zhongqing remains an exception to this rule.
The third focus is on hands, perception, and data. Companies specializing in dexterous hands and sensors, previously on the periphery, now occupy prominent positions: Lingxin Qiaoshou, Xinuo Future, KAI Power, Innomotion, and Zhongke Guiji. Since the most valuable economic work is performed by hands, vision, depth, force, and tactile sensing functions are divided into separate modules. Robots lack a natural internet data source; therefore, high-quality robot data still relies on teleoperation and human demonstration, which complicates standardization. As a result, the industry uses a combination of real machine data collection, simulation, and synthetic data, forming a closed loop.
At 21:00, Galaxy General's rehearsal was not yet finished, and the road outside was overloaded with taxis picking up staff who had been working past ten o'clock in the evening. The lit halls and people going out into the night speak to the heat of the industry as much as any financial indicators.
