# Humanoid Robots Close to Their 'ChatGPT Moment' as China's Output Heads Past 100,000

> China's humanoid robot output is climbing fast and could top 100,000 units in 2026. Industry figures predict a ChatGPT-style breakthrough by late 2028, even as fragmented technical paths and a lack of standards emerge as the main obstacles.

- Source: Times of China (Times of China)
- Canonical URL: https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/humanoid-robots-chatgpt-moment
- Chinese edition: https://timesofchina.cn.com/article/humanoid-robots-chatgpt-moment
- Author: 中国时报编辑部
- Section: AI
- Published: 2026-07-23T17:30:00+08:00
- Updated: 2026-07-23T17:30:00+08:00
- Tags: 人形机器人, 具身智能, 银河通用, 人工智能, 产业标准

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Industry insiders believe humanoid robots are approaching their own ChatGPT moment, a turning point big enough to carry the technology out of niche circles and into public consciousness. Behind that view is the rapid rise in China's humanoid robot output and a dense run of policy and industry moves around it.

## An output boom

The production figures trace a steep climb. In 2025, China made about 20,000 humanoid robots. In the first half of 2026 alone, output already passed 40,000 units. According to Ke Jixin, a vice-minister of industry and information technology, speaking at a technical committee meeting in Shaoxing, Zhejiang province, full-year output in 2026 is expected to exceed 100,000 units, roughly five times the previous year.

At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, which closed on Monday in Shanghai, the G1 robot from Galbot demonstrated making breakfast, toasting bread and pouring drinks, adjusting in real time when spectators moved obstacles into its path, a sign of stronger adaptation to its surroundings.

## A tipping point in 2028

Wang He, founder and chief technology officer of Galbot, predicts a key breakthrough by the end of 2028. He says that as embodied AI foundation models mature, robots could reach a 70 to 80 percent success rate on tasks they were never specifically trained for.

In his view, an embodied-intelligence foundation model that unifies perception, decision-making and action is like giving a robot both a brain and a cerebellum, and is a critical path toward the tipping point of artificial general intelligence. The next two to three years are widely seen as the window that decides where the sector goes.

## What is really scarce is standards

Beneath the fast expansion, the weak spots are showing. Different companies follow different technical paths, interfaces are incompatible, evaluation methods vary, and safety boundaries remain unclear. Xie Shaofeng, who chairs the ministry's technical committee, described an industry that is blossoming yet fighting separately, while Jiang Lei, a deputy director of the committee, put it bluntly: hardware needs standards, and models need firewalls.

Regulators are already moving. The first batch of humanoid robot industry standards is expected before the end of 2026. Zheng Shanjie, head of the National Development and Reform Commission, has hosted a symposium for private enterprises in Beijing, and relevant departments are pushing standardization, trying to lay the groundwork of the rules before the sector reaches its anticipated inflection point.

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Originally published by Times of China. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/humanoid-robots-chatgpt-moment.