At a Glance (China Coffee Network): On May 16, China inaugurated its National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Embodied Intelligence) in Hangzhou—giving robots, including a robot “barista” that serves coffee, a national-level vocational-skills training ground and a stage to move from lab to real-world use.
On May 16, the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base (Embodied Intelligence) was inaugurated in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, giving robots a national-level vocational-skills training ground.
Embodied intelligence is a key direction for AI moving from the virtual to the real world, and is rapidly advancing from the lab into a new stage of scenario-based application. The “15th Five-Year Plan” explicitly calls for “forward-looking layout of future industries” and promoting embodied intelligence, among others, as new growth points for the economy. The pilot base is an important move and carrier in the national “AI+” strategic deployment.
Caption: At the base’s exhibition hall, a robot “server” delivers coffee to a customer. Photo by Xinhua reporter Zhu Han.
Integrated into daily life, building a “show home” for future living and production—
“Serving you right away!” Walking into the base’s exhibition hall, a robot “barista” delivers coffee to the counter, prompting visitors to exclaim: “Science fiction has become reality.”
From catering services, unmanned supermarkets, event performances, and power inspections to fruit picking and underground operations—across more than 30 application-oriented vocational-skills training scenarios, over 130 robot “employees” each do their job in an orderly manner.
According to the base, it has built a comprehensive showcase, application, and promotion platform integrating scenario experience, technology demonstration, R&D cooperation, and industry empowerment. It showcases both commercial application scenarios already developed and deployed and the data-collection and skills-training process, guiding embodied-intelligence technology further from the lab toward real-world social application.
Caption: At the base’s exhibition hall, a robot works on a 1:1 replica PC factory production line. Photo by Xinhua reporter Zhu Han.
Deep cooperation, building a complete industry ecosystem—
At present, China’s advantages in robotics technology and the industry chain are mainly “point-like”; some enterprises show clear strengths in robot motion control and intelligent manipulator manufacturing.
Li Xingteng, deputy general manager of the operating company Hangzhou Embodied Intelligence Pilot Base Technology Co., Ltd., said the base hopes to use the platform to deeply cooperate with robotics enterprises nationwide and with upstream and downstream players in the industry chain, further converting “point-like” advantages into industry-chain advantages.
According to the base, it will work to build a public technical-service platform centered on computing-power support, data openness, model services, and scenario validation, constructing a complete industry ecosystem from computing power and chips to bodies and model R&D, and on to application-scenario development, forming the capacity to link the whole country and empower all kinds of upstream and downstream players.
Wang Yaonan, a member of the academic committee of the National Artificial Intelligence Application Pilot Base and an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that in the future, with continuous technological breakthroughs and a constantly improving industry ecosystem, the integration of embodied intelligence and robotics will unleash greater innovative vitality, becoming a core force driving the technological revolution, industrial transformation, and social progress, and building a new future of human–machine coexistence and intelligent inclusiveness.
Planning: Chen Fang
Reporters: Zhu Han, Wei Yukun
Produced by the Domestic News Department of Xinhua News Agency
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