Dispatch
China built nearly 90% of the world's humanoid robots last year, and MIT Tech Review went to see what they can do
MIT Technology Review published a dispatch on 2026-08-25 from a humanoid robot carnival at an R&D center on Shanghai's outskirts housing more than 100 robotics companies. Robots climbed stairs, folded laundry, did front flips and martial arts, fought with water beads, and in DexForce's case made coffee, while another exhibitor's arms struggled to fold T-shirts. The framing number: nearly 90% of the 13,000-plus two-armed, two-legged robots delivered globally last year were made in China, and embodied AI is a named facet of China's latest national plan. The piece is candid that humanoid progress elsewhere is constrained by safety problems, high prices and short battery life.
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