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Harbin Boshi Automation Co., Ltd. (commonly known as BOSHIAC, Boshi, or in Chinese 博实股份; stock code: 002698.SZ) is a Chinese intelligent manufacturing and industrial automation company headquartered in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. Founded in 1997 and publicly listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2012, the company specializes in intelligent manufacturing equipment, industrial robots, and smart factory solutions for chemical, petrochemical, metallurgy, and food industries. Since August 2023, BOSHIAC has worked with the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) under a strategic cooperation agreement to develop the DexBot humanoid robot, a hybrid dual-form platform that combines a humanoid upper body with either bipedal legs or a wheeled mobile base. The collaboration draws on HIT's State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems, one of the earliest robotics research units in China, and is positioned by Chinese analysts as one of the country's fastest paths from academic prototype to A-share listed humanoid product.[1][2][3]
Harbin Boshi Automation Co., Ltd. was founded in 1997 in the Harbin High-tech Industrial Development Zone. The company initially focused on post-processing automation equipment for solid materials in the petrochemical, coal chemical, and fertilizer industries.[1]
In 2012, BOSHIAC was successfully listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange under stock code 002698, becoming one of China's publicly traded industrial automation companies.[2]
The company has long-standing personal and institutional links to HIT. Its chairman Deng Xijun (邓喜军) and several other founders and executives, including Zhang Yuchun, Wang Chungang, and the late academician Cai Hegao (蔡鹤皋), all originated from HIT's Robotics Institute. Cai Hegao was a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a former director of the HIT Robot Research Institute. A wholly owned subsidiary of HIT was once the largest shareholder of BOSHIAC and as of 2023 still held about a 5 percent stake. These ties gave the firm an unusual amount of access to HIT's academic research pipeline.[3]
On August 18, 2023, the company signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with HIT to jointly establish a humanoid robot key technology and prototype industrialization R&D project. Under the agreement BOSHIAC committed to provide 100 million yuan (approximately 14 million US dollars) of R&D funding over three years. Both parties agreed to share project results and intellectual property, with BOSHIAC receiving priority usage rights and industrial conversion rights to the resulting technology, including the right to set up subsidiaries built around individual subsystems.[3][4]
The project moved from paper into hardware through 2024 and 2025. On December 30, 2025, HIT's School of Mechanical Engineering and BOSHIAC announced a joint stage milestone in which they unveiled a dual-form humanoid platform along with self-developed joint modules, two versions of a dexterous hand, and an in-house AI control stack called the Huazi-Rixin large model. Chinese press coverage described the result as the DexBot family of humanoid robots.[5][6]
In separate investor communications in early 2025 and again in May 2025, BOSHIAC told the Shenzhen Stock Exchange that the humanoid robot project was still in the principle prototype debugging phase and that any decisions on full industrialization would depend on prototype performance, scenario fit, and cost analysis after testing concluded.[7][8]
As of 2025, BOSHIAC reported approximately 4,919 employees and a market capitalization in the range of 2.6 billion US dollars, and continued to operate as a major player in China's industrial automation sector.[2][9]
| Person | Role | HIT background |
|---|---|---|
| Deng Xijun (邓喜军) | Chairman and chief executive officer of BOSHIAC | HIT Robotics Institute alumnus |
| Zhang Yuchun (张玉春) | Co-founder and executive | HIT Robotics Institute alumnus |
| Wang Chungang (王春刚) | Co-founder and executive | HIT Robotics Institute alumnus |
| Cai Hegao (蔡鹤皋) | Founding shareholder and academic mentor | Academician, Chinese Academy of Engineering; former director, HIT Robot Research Institute |
| Fu Yili (付宜利) | Academic principal investigator for the joint program | Professor, HIT School of Mechanical Engineering |
| Ni Fenglei (倪风雷) | Academic principal investigator for the joint program | Professor, State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems, HIT |
Fu Yili and Ni Fenglei lead the academic side of the partnership through HIT's State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems. Ni Fenglei holds B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees from HIT and works on space robotics and robot control. Fu Yili's group at the School of Mechanical Engineering focuses on dexterous manipulation and surgical robotics. Both groups had been building humanoid subsystems for years before the BOSHIAC tie-up gave them a route to industrial scale-up.[5][10]
The DexBot is a hybrid humanoid robot family developed jointly by BOSHIAC and HIT. The system is delivered in two body configurations that share most of the upper-body hardware: a bipedal version aimed at unstructured terrain (factory inspection, outdoor tasks, disaster response) and a wheeled version aimed at indoor service, transportation, and precision operations.[5][6]
The bipedal walking platform documented in HIT academic papers has the following dimensions:
| Specification | Details |
|---|---|
| Height | 175 cm |
| Weight | approximately 58 kg |
| Total active joints | 28 (excluding dexterous hands) |
| Total DOF | 56 (including hands) |
| Leg joints | 6 per leg |
| Waist joints | 2 |
| Arm joints | 7 per arm |
| Transformable configurations | approximately 10 |
| Mobility | Track-legged or wheeled mobile platform |
| Walking speed (simulation) | up to 0.9 m/s with whole-body coordination |
A commercial press kit version released in late 2025 lists somewhat more aggressive specifications, including a peak running speed of 8.5 km/h and a vertical jump of 0.6 m, drawing on a hybrid hydraulic and electric actuation scheme.[11][6]
DexBot features a versatile humanoid upper body mounted on either a bipedal lower body or a track-legged mobile platform. The robot's 56 active degrees of freedom and approximately 10 transformable configurations let it adapt to varied complex environments. The track-legged base enables traversal of rough terrain, stairs, and obstacles that are difficult for purely wheeled platforms.[5]
BOSHIAC and HIT have built two distinct dexterous hand designs that ship with DexBot:
| Hand variant | Joints | Active DOF | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| High-performance hand | 20 | 15 | For heavy-load precision tasks; fingertip force exceeds 30 N |
| Lightweight hand | 11 | 7 | For lighter manipulation and faster motion |
Both hands use multi-finger configurations and combine dual encoders with torque sensors at the fingers. The high-performance variant is positioned for industrial assembly and tool handling, while the lightweight version is aimed at service-style manipulation. The hands are powered by high-torque custom electric actuators with a high power-to-weight ratio.[5][6]
The team has developed multiple joint module families with what the announcement calls a high-load lightweight design. Rotational joints can carry a 5 kg load at 5 kg of self-weight, and the leg joints reach a peak torque of 400 Nm. Linear joints provide a maximum thrust of 10,000 N. The 7 degree-of-freedom hybrid manipulator on each arm is described as fully force-controlled at every joint.[6]
Beyond the DexBot humanoid, BOSHIAC manufactures a broad range of industrial automation products:
| Product family | Description |
|---|---|
| Industrial robots | Material-handling, palletizing, and smelting robotic systems |
| Automated equipment | Post-processing systems for solid materials such as granular fertilizer and polymer pellets |
| Weighing and bagging | High-speed bagging and palletizing lines |
| Smart logistics | Conveyor, inspection, and warehousing automation |
| Smart factory solutions | Integrated automation systems for complete production lines |
| Environmental equipment | Energy conservation and pollution control systems |
These products serve the petrochemical, coal chemical, salt chemical, fine chemical, fertilizer, metallurgy, logistics, food, beverage, pharmaceutical, photovoltaic, steel, rubber, and feed industries, with deployments across Europe, Asia, North America, and Africa.[1][9]
DexBot integrates several advanced technologies from BOSHIAC's industrial expertise and HIT's robotics research:
For cost reasons and as a matter of national policy, BOSHIAC has said it plans to complete the humanoid robot's core components in-house rather than buying them off the shelf, citing existing technology reserves from its industrial robot business and HIT's research pipeline as the basis for that decision.[12]
The DexBot platform serves as both a commercial industrial automation system and an academic research platform. Recent peer-reviewed publications from the HIT-led team include:
| Year | Title | Venue | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | A versatile humanoid robot platform for dexterous manipulation and human-robot collaboration | CAAI Transactions on Intelligence Technology | Describes the DexBot platform as a research testbed for dexterous manipulation.[13] |
| 2025 | Walking control of humanoid robots based on improved footstep planner and whole-body coordination controller | Frontiers in Neurorobotics | Reports a position-based footstep planner and whole-body controller validated on DexBot simulation prototypes.[10] |
The 2025 Frontiers paper was led by Xiangji Wang and Fusheng Zha at HIT, with Mantian Li at Shenzhen Polytechnic University as a corresponding author, and was published on February 21, 2025 (DOI 10.3389/fnbot.2025.1538979).[10]
Chinese sell-side analysts have described BOSHIAC as one of the rare A-share listed pure-play humanoid robot bodies, on the grounds that the firm intends to build the full humanoid platform in-house rather than supplying components to a third-party integrator. Coverage from securities research and tech-press outlets in 2023 and 2024 framed the HIT tie-up as a particularly fast academic-to-commercial path because the founders, the academic principals, and the laboratory infrastructure are already in the same city and the same alumni network.[4][14]
At the same time, the company itself has consistently taken a cautious public posture about commercialization timing. In statements through 2024 and 2025 BOSHIAC reminded investors that the principle prototype was still being debugged and that decisions on mass production would depend on prototype performance and scenario economics, not on the press cycle.[7][8] The December 30, 2025 demonstration of the dual-form platform, joint modules, and dexterous hands was billed by HIT and BOSHIAC as a stage achievement rather than a product launch.[6]
| Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Stock exchange | Shenzhen Stock Exchange |
| Stock code | 002698.SZ |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Listed | 2012 |
| Employees (2025) | approximately 4,919 |
| Chief executive | Deng Xijun |
| Market cap (2025) | approximately 2.68 billion US dollars |
| Headquarters | Harbin High-tech Industrial Development Zone, Harbin |
| Investment in HIT humanoid program | 100 million yuan over three years (signed August 2023) |