At the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC), held from August 19-23 at the Beijing Yichuang International Convention and Exhibition Center, a special session titled "AI Large Models Empowering New Paradigms for Robot and Embodied Intelligence Industries" took place alongside the main expo. Zhang Feng, Party Secretary of the Council of the Chinese Institute of Electronics and former Party Group Member and Chief Engineer of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, attended and delivered a keynote address.

Zhang noted that 2026 marks the crucial opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan and a period of accelerated upgrading for China's future industry layout and cultivation of new quality productive forces. From a national strategic standpoint, the government work report has explicitly incorporated embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and 6G into the core cultivation directions for future industries, while deepening the "AI+" initiative. The report also introduces for the first time the creation of a new intelligent economy format, setting the course and providing fundamental guidance for the deep integration of AI and the robotics industry.

Zhang pointed out that China's embodied intelligence and robotics industry has now entered a new development phase characterized by policy leadership, standard safeguards, and ecosystem clustering. Eight government departments, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, have introduced dedicated policies and industry standards, establishing a dual-driven framework of policy empowerment and standard foundation-building. This solidifies the groundwork for the industry's large-scale, standardized, and high-quality advancement.

In Zhang's view, the rapid iteration of technology and industry, combined with the deep integration of AI and robotics, is breaking down barriers between virtual and physical interactions. This is driving embodied intelligence into diverse applications such as industrial manufacturing, elderly care services, and logistics transportation. With continuous innovations in operating systems and closed-loop real-machine data, the collaborative development model of "technology-product-scenario" is accelerating. The industry is transitioning from technical validation to factory-level large-scale deployment and commercial verification. Humanoid robots and embodied intelligence terminals have become the core engine for cultivating new quality productive forces and the critical high ground in global technological competition.

Zhang introduced that the Chinese Institute of Electronics has been deeply engaged in the electronics information, AI, and robotics industries, committed to serving national strategies, promoting industrial innovation, and advancing technological self-reliance. The Institute has consistently built high-level exchange platforms, refined standard systems, tackled core technologies, and deepened industry-academia-research integration. Looking ahead, the Institute will fully leverage its role as a bridge and bond, pooling resources across the industry, focusing on the pain points of the humanoid robot and embodied intelligence sectors, building high-level open cooperation platforms, and helping the industry overcome technical bottlenecks, improve industrial ecosystems, expand application scenarios, and accelerate the commercialization of scientific achievements.

Zhang expressed three expectations for industry development. First, uphold innovation as the foundation and boldly venture into uncharted technical territories. Focus on frontier directions such as VLA multimodal fusion, world models, and differentiable physics engines, and tackle hardware bottlenecks like dexterous hands and high-power joints. The industry must evolve from "model simulation" toward "physical causality" to strengthen the coordinated capabilities of embodied intelligence's brain and cerebellum. Second, emphasize practical implementation and activate new momentum for application scenarios. The industry should move from "single-point pilots" toward "scalable replication," allowing AI-empowered robots to truly operate and deliver value in intelligent manufacturing, healthcare and rehabilitation, and commercial services. Application-driven approaches should solve data scarcity by bridging the gap between Sim2Real and closed-loop real-machine data. Third, foster ecosystem co-prosperity and build a shared development community. Rely on Robot Ops to reshape the industry landscape, break down barriers to data and computing power collaboration, deepen supply chain coordination and cost control, and build an open, win-win, human-machine collaborative global industry ecosystem.

Zhang emphasized that the industry must deepen exchanges and collaboration, build consensus, and jointly explore new pathways for AI large models to empower robot upgrades and the large-scale deployment of embodied intelligence. This will accelerate the creation of an industrial ecosystem featuring human-machine collaboration and intelligence for all things, driving the high-quality development of China's robotics and intelligent industries.