At the China Hi-Tech Fair (CHTF) in Shenzhen, robotics played a prominent role this year, with several companies presenting new developments in humanoid mobility, inspection robots and embodied AI. The event, which featured more than 5,000 new products and attracted visitors from over 120 countries, highlighted how robotics is becoming a core element in China’s broader strategy for high-tech innovation.
One of the main presentations came from Leju Robotics, which introduced its humanoid robot Kuavo. The model, shown in a design inspired by traditional Chinese craftsmanship, demonstrated coordinated grasping, turning and balanced movement. According to the company, Kuavo is intended to showcase progress in dexterous manipulation and full-body mobility, areas Chinese developers increasingly emphasise. Leju also presented GeneoX, an inspection robot dog equipped with edge-AI capabilities and designed to work across multiple robot brands. The system is positioned for clustered deployment in inspection tasks, where fleets of robots need to adapt to diverse environments and operate with minimal oversight.
Elsewhere at the fair, several humanoid models in the Nanshan Pavilion’s robotics forum zone drew attention with demonstrations of running, front-flips and autonomous navigation behaviours. Organisers described some of these robots as capable of “L4 autonomous-driving adaptation” across different conditions, underscoring an effort to merge humanoid robotics with technologies more commonly associated with autonomous vehicles. Their presentation placed particular focus on dexterous hands, signalling that fine manipulation remains a central research theme.
Robotics was one of the designated innovation zones at the fair, alongside other strategic technologies. The emphasis on mobile robots, dexterous systems and edge-AI inspection platforms reflects a broader trend in China’s robotics sector, where companies are accelerating development from single-purpose industrial robots toward more general-purpose mobile systems. For robot manufacturers and automation specialists, the demonstrations illustrate how different robot types—humanoids, quadrupeds and inspection platforms—are evolving in parallel, each aimed at addressing different operational constraints.
For international observers, the fair served as a marker of China’s ambition to scale embodied AI across industrial, logistics and public-service applications. With advances in mobility, perception and multi-robot coordination, the showcased systems indicate that the range of environments suitable for robotic deployment is expanding. How quickly these prototypes translate into commercial deployments will be closely watched by the global automation industry, where efficiency gains increasingly depend on matching the right robot type to the right operational scenario.
