(Yicai) Dec. 15 -- Shanghai has held an embodied artificial intelligence robot competition, with participants performing complex moves on stage while also completing various industrial application tasks across multiple events.

AgiBot's robots performed a traditional Chinese lion dance at the opening ceremony of the Global Developer Pioneers Summit and International Embodied AI Skills Competition, also known as the GDPS 2025, held on Dec. 13. The Shanghai-based firm's Yuanzheng A2 played the drums, using rhythmic beats to guide a dance group of Lingxi X2 units.

In addition, Unitree Robotics' G1 shared the stage with human performers for a traditional Tai Chi and modern street dance.

After the opening ceremony, robots took part in various contests, including industrial assembly and emergency rescue. In the former, Kepler Robotics' products were handling goods, with the core being the reconstruction of traditional industrial logistics handling concepts using an "embodied AI brain," while in the latter, participants had to complete a series of highly challenging tasks in an extreme track of 10 by 30 meters.

The competition is a "high-pressure test" for humanoid robots' commercialization capabilities, a staffer from Kepler Robotics told Yicai. The industrial manufacturing, logistics assembly, and other events are core scenarios where androids are most likely to generate commercial value first, so robots must not merely be "laboratory performance artists," but "productivity tools" that can withstand real-world application verification, the person pointed out.

The home service contest required robots to complete multiple tasks, such as folding clothes and organizing tableware in a home environment, a person in charge of the National and Local Joint Innovation Center for Humanoid Robots, which participated in this event, said to Yicai. The complex environment made it very challenging for robots, the person noted.

An exhibition of embodied AI supply chains was also held during the competition, where any component of participating robots could be found on the booths of suppliers. The event highlights Shanghai's proactive efforts to build a robot supply chain over the past years.

Shanghai aims for its embodied AI core industry to exceed CNY50 billion (USD7.1 billion) by 2027, it announced in August.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Martin Kadiev