At the 2026 World Robot Conference Forum, held in Beijing from August 19 to 22, Xu Xiaolan, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Deputy Chief of the Central Committee of the China Zhi Gong Party, Vice President of the All-China Women's Federation, and President of the Chinese Institute of Electronics, stated at the main forum that embodied intelligence can effectively mitigate the issues posed by an aging population and labor shortages.

She highlighted that population aging has become a long-term global trend. In elderly care scenarios, embodied intelligence can perform multiple functions, including daily living assistance, emotional companionship, and health monitoring. In the future, both our generation and our parents' generation will face a significant demand for elderly care and companionship. Older adults also have emotional needs, and robots can offer emotional guidance and support, thereby catering to the care requirements of an aging society.

Furthermore, she pointed out that low birth rates have led to an insufficient labor supply in some economies. Currently, many countries, including several European nations and neighboring countries like Japan and South Korea, have entered stages of low birth rates and population aging. China is also confronting the dual challenge of an aging population combined with a declining birth rate, and the future labor gap is expected to widen further. The working-age population forms the foundation of the labor force, and the labor force is a crucial safeguard for productivity.

"Against this backdrop, embodied intelligence, represented by humanoid robots, possesses highly human-like manipulation capabilities and environmental adaptability. It can be extensively deployed in labor-intensive roles across manufacturing, catering services, logistics sorting, and other sectors," she stated.