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| Midea MIRO | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Manufacturer | Midea Group |
| Country of origin | China |
| Year unveiled | 2025 |
| Generation | MIRO (1st gen), MIRO (2nd gen), MIRO U (3rd gen) |
| Status | Pilot deployment (MIRO U); earlier generations operational |
| Estimated price | $150,000 - $250,000 USD (configuration-dependent) |
| Target market | Industrial manufacturing, factory automation |
| Headquarters | Foshan, Guangdong, China |
| Website | midea-group.com |
Midea MIRO is a family of industrial humanoid robots developed by Midea Group, one of the world's largest home appliance manufacturers and a Fortune Global 500 company headquartered in Foshan, Guangdong, China. The MIRO series is designed for factory automation tasks including material transport, quality inspection, and assembly line operations. MIRO robots function as execution agents within Midea's AI-driven intelligent manufacturing ecosystem, receiving instructions from centralized AI systems and carrying them out in real time.[1][2]
The most notable model in the series is the MIRO U, unveiled on December 5, 2025 at the Greater Bay Area New Economy Forum in Guangzhou. Billed as the world's first six-armed humanoid robot, the MIRO U features six fully actuated bionic limbs mounted on a wheeled chassis, capable of performing three tasks simultaneously. The robot represents the third generation of the MIRO line and reflects Midea's philosophy of prioritizing industrial utility over strict biomimicry.[3][4]
Midea's robotics capabilities are underpinned by its 2017 acquisition of KUKA, one of the world's top four industrial robot manufacturers. The MIRO series is part of Midea's broader humanoid robotics strategy, which also includes the Meila series of consumer-facing service robots designed for commercial and residential environments.[5]
Midea Group Co., Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate founded in 1968 in Beijiao, Shunde District, Foshan, Guangdong Province. Originally a manufacturer of bottle caps, Midea evolved into one of the world's largest producers of home appliances, including air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, and kitchen appliances. The company is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange and has been included on the Fortune Global 500 list for ten consecutive years as of 2025, ranking 246th with a 31-place improvement from the previous year.[6][7]
In fiscal year 2024, Midea reported revenue of RMB 409.1 billion (approximately $56 billion USD), up 9.5% year-on-year. Net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 38.5 billion ($5.3 billion USD), a 14.3% increase. Operating cash flow hit a record high of RMB 60.5 billion. Overseas revenue accounted for over 40% of total revenue, with its own-brand manufacturing business growing 35% year-on-year.[6][7]
Midea operates a multi-brand portfolio spanning consumer and commercial products. Through a series of international acquisitions, the company has expanded into robotics, building automation, and industrial technology. Key acquisitions include KUKA (German industrial robotics, 2017), Toshiba Home Appliances (Japan, 2016), Teka (European kitchen appliances), and ARBONIA Climate (European climate solutions).[7]
Midea's entry into robotics began in earnest with the acquisition of KUKA AG, a German industrial robotics and automation company founded in 1898 and headquartered in Augsburg, Bavaria. KUKA is one of the "Big Four" global industrial robot manufacturers alongside FANUC (Japan), ABB (Switzerland), and Yaskawa Electric (Japan).[8]
Midea initiated its takeover of KUKA in 2016 and completed the acquisition of approximately 94.55% of KUKA's equity in January 2017 for about 29.2 billion yuan (approximately 3.7 billion euros). In 2022, Midea acquired the remaining shares, taking full ownership of KUKA with a total investment of approximately 31.5 billion yuan ($4.4 billion USD). The privatization delisted KUKA from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.[8][9]
The Midea KUKA Intelligent Manufacturing Science and Technology Park in Shunde, Foshan has become the largest industrial robot production base in China, with cumulative production and delivery of more than 80,000 industrial robots. The facility operates Guangdong's first fully automatic production line for "robots producing robots," where the entire production line is composed of Midea robots working continuously 24 hours a day. On average, one robot rolls off the production line every 30 minutes.[10]
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 2016 | Midea initiates takeover bid for KUKA AG |
| 2017 | Completes acquisition of 94.55% of KUKA for 29.2 billion yuan |
| 2022 | Acquires remaining KUKA shares; achieves full privatization. Receives government approval for State Key Laboratory for High-end Heavy-duty Robots |
| 2024 | Establishes Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre |
| March 2025 | Unveils first humanoid robot prototype at media event |
| July 2025 | Debuts Meila household robot at World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai |
| August 2025 | Deploys MIRO at Jingzhou washing machine factory for pilot operations |
| December 2025 | Unveils MIRO U (third-generation) at Greater Bay Area New Economy Forum |
| March 2026 | Pledges 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) for AI and robotics R&D over three years |
In 2022, Midea received Chinese government approval to establish the State Key Laboratory for High-end Heavy-duty Robots and the Blue Orange Laboratory. This facility is the only "state key laboratory" in the robotics sector backed by a private enterprise in China, underscoring the government's confidence in Midea's capabilities in this domain.[3][11]
In 2024, Midea established a dedicated Humanoid Robot Innovation Centre to coordinate its humanoid robotics R&D. According to Wei Chang, Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of Midea Group, the innovation center integrates the company's R&D resources to focus on three core areas: core components (reducers, motors, sensors, and controllers), humanoid robot bodies, and the robotization of home appliances.[11][12]
Midea has committed substantial resources to robotics and artificial intelligence research. Over the five years ending in 2024, the company's cumulative R&D investment exceeded 60 billion yuan ($8.4 billion USD), with over 14.5 billion yuan invested in 2023 alone. The R&D budget expanded 13% year-on-year to reach approximately 11.4 billion yuan ($1.57 billion USD) by Q1 2025.[12][13]
In March 2026, Midea announced plans to invest an additional 60 billion yuan (approximately $8.7 billion USD) over the next three years specifically in AI and embodied intelligence. This commitment roughly matches the company's total R&D spending over the previous five years, signaling a dramatic acceleration in its robotics ambitions.[14]
The MIRO series represents Midea's industrial track of humanoid robot development. The name "MIRO" positions these robots as manufacturing-oriented platforms designed to work alongside existing factory equipment, including autonomous mobile robots (AMRs), KUKA industrial arms, and human workers.
Unlike many humanoid robot developers that focus on replicating human form and movement, Midea has adopted a function-first approach with the MIRO series. Wei Chang, Midea's CTO, articulated this philosophy when unveiling the MIRO U: "The core value of MIRO U lies in moving beyond mere form imitation to achieve a leap in operational efficiency within industrial scenarios."[3][4]
This design philosophy prioritizes industrial utility over anthropomorphic aesthetics. The MIRO robots retain a humanoid head and torso to maintain compatibility with human-height workstations and production lines, but their lower bodies use wheeled chassis rather than bipedal legs. This choice provides greater stability, continuous operation capability, and 360-degree rotation, all of which are advantages in factory settings where flat floors and predictable environments are standard.[3]
Midea's first humanoid robot prototype was publicly shown at a media event in March 2025. The prototype demonstrated a range of capabilities including shaking hands, passing water bottles, making heart gestures, dancing, opening bottle caps, and driving in screws. While primarily a technology demonstration, it signaled Midea's serious entry into the humanoid robotics arena.[11][12]
The second-generation MIRO, featuring a conventional dual-arm configuration on a wheeled base, entered active service at Midea's Jingzhou washing machine factory in Hubei Province in August 2025. At the Jingzhou plant, MIRO works alongside AMRs, single-arm four-wheel robots, KUKA industrial robot systems, and human workers. The robot performs material transport, washing machine tub handling, quality inspection, and other repetitive tasks.[2][15]
The MIRO U, unveiled on December 5, 2025 at the Greater Bay Area New Economy Forum in Guangzhou, represents a radical departure from conventional humanoid robot design. Rather than the standard two-arm configuration, the MIRO U features six fully actuated bionic limbs, making it what Midea calls the world's first six-armed humanoid robot.[3][4]
The six-arm design enables the robot to perform three distinct tasks simultaneously, effectively doing "the work of three pairs of hands." The arms are arranged in a tiered configuration: lower arms handle heavy components and structural parts, while upper arms execute delicate assembly work and precision screw-fastening operations. This division of labor allows the MIRO U to function as a self-contained workstation rather than a single-task operator.[3][4]
Key features of the MIRO U include:
Midea estimates the MIRO U can improve production line changeover and adjustment efficiency by approximately 30% once fully integrated into operations.[3][4]
The following table summarizes the known specifications for the MIRO series, drawing primarily from third-party specification databases. Some figures (particularly for the MIRO U) remain estimates pending official confirmation from Midea.
| Category | Specification | MIRO (2nd gen) | MIRO U (3rd gen) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical | Height | ~170 cm | 165-175 cm |
| Physical | Weight | ~120 kg | 100-140 kg |
| Physical | Shoulder width | ~70 cm | ~70 cm |
| Physical | Depth | ~60 cm | ~60 cm |
| Locomotion | Type | Wheeled base | Wheeled-legged hybrid chassis |
| Locomotion | Max speed | 3 km/h | 3 km/h |
| Locomotion | Rotation | 360-degree in-place | 360-degree in-place |
| Arms | Configuration | Dual-arm | Six bionic arms |
| Arms | Degrees of freedom | 23 total (5 per arm, 6 per leg, 1 waist) | 40+ total |
| Manipulation | Arm payload | 4.5 kg | 5 kg per arm |
| Manipulation | Max knee torque | 90 N.m | N/A |
| Manipulation | End-effectors | Grippers, five-fingered hands | Quick-release modular tool changers |
| Sensors | Vision | RGB cameras, stereo cameras | RGB cameras, stereo cameras |
| Sensors | Inertial | IMU, gyroscope | IMU, gyroscope |
| Sensors | Other | Force sensors (per arm), ultrasonic, temperature | Force sensors (per arm), ultrasonic, temperature |
| Navigation | System | Indoor SLAM (visual + LiDAR) | Indoor SLAM (visual + LiDAR) |
| Power | Battery type | Lithium-ion polymer | Lithium-ion polymer (3 kWh) |
| Power | Runtime | ~6 hours | ~6 hours |
| Power | Charging time | ~2 hours | ~2 hours |
| Power | Consumption | 150W avg / 400W peak | 150W avg / 400W peak |
| Power | Battery lifespan | 4 years | 4 years |
| Actuators | Type | 48V DC geared motors | 48V DC geared motors |
| Software | Operating system | Proprietary with ROS 2 integration | Proprietary with ROS 2 integration |
| Software | Programming | C++, Python APIs | C++, Python APIs |
| Connectivity | Wireless | Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 5G | Wi-Fi, Ethernet, 5G |
| Interface | Control methods | Touch panel, voice commands, gesture recognition, mobile app | Touch panel, voice commands, gesture recognition, mobile app |
The MIRO robots do not operate in isolation. They function as physical execution agents within Midea's broader AI-driven manufacturing ecosystem, a concept the company refers to as the "AI agent factory."
Midea's intelligent manufacturing system is built on a distributed, scalable multi-agent architecture centered around what the company calls the "Factory Brain." This system serves as the task scheduling center, coordinating AI agents across factory operations. The Factory Brain uses industrial large language model inference engines to enhance decision-making and enables AI agents to communicate through agent-to-agent (A2A) protocols for autonomous task coordination.[16]
At Midea's Jingzhou washing machine factory, 14 AI agents have been deployed across 38 core business scenarios spanning energy management, production scheduling, quality control, operations, and maintenance. The MIRO robot serves as one of the core execution units within this system, receiving task instructions from the centralized AI and carrying them out on the production floor.[16]
Midea's Jingzhou pilot plant received the world's first artificial intelligence agent factory certification from World Record Certification. The factory demonstrated that through extensive use of AI technologies and automation robots, tasks that previously required several hours can be performed in only a few minutes, improving operational efficiency by over 80%. Quality checks that once took 15 minutes now take just 30 seconds using AI-assisted inspection systems linked to design blueprints.[16]
Specifically, the MIRO robot at Jingzhou uses dual-arm coordination with a single-arm load capacity of 3 kilograms to steadily carry a 9-kilogram washing machine tub and deliver it to a 3D quality inspection station. The robot works seamlessly alongside AMRs for material logistics and KUKA industrial arms for heavy assembly tasks.[2][16]
Following the success of the Jingzhou pilot, Midea scheduled the MIRO U for deployment at its high-end washing machine facility in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province by the end of December 2025. The Wuxi deployment represents the first factory integration of the six-armed MIRO U configuration, where the robot is expected to demonstrate its 30% efficiency improvement claim under real production conditions.[3][4]
Midea plans to use the Jingzhou factory as a template to replicate its AI agent factory solutions across its other plants worldwide.[16]
Alongside the industrial MIRO series, Midea has formally established a second product line called Meila (also transliterated as "Mila"), targeting commercial and residential environments. This bifurcated approach, with MIRO for industry and Meila for consumers, reflects Midea's strategy to address both markets using its robotics and smart home expertise.[3][5]
Midea debuted its household humanoid robot Meila at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai, which ended July 28, 2025. At the conference, the Meila robot demonstrated voice command interpretation, coffee brewing, refrigerator operation, and seamless integration with Midea's premium smart home ecosystem.[5][17]
The WAIC 2025 event, which featured more than 150 humanoid robots from over 80 companies and debuted 60+ new intelligent models, served as a milestone for showcasing commercial-ready humanoid applications in China.[17]
Meila is designed to integrate with Midea's extensive smart home platform. The company has completed AI integration across over 150 appliance categories, with over 140 million smart appliances already connected globally and more than 150 million smart users onboarded. In March 2026, Midea launched a new whole-home intelligence strategy centered on its "Three Ones" framework: One Home Appliance Network, One AI Brain, and One Open Platform, alongside its self-evolving home intelligence agent, MevoX.[18]
Midea has also achieved deep interconnection with leading smartphone manufacturers including Huawei, Vivo, OPPO, and Honor, as well as automakers such as BYD, NIO, and Changan. This connectivity ecosystem provides a potential foundation for Meila robots to serve as physical interfaces within a broader network of smart devices.[18]
The Meila series was in final testing as of late 2025, with Midea planning to introduce the robots at its offline experience stores in 2026. In these retail environments, Meila robots will conduct product tours and interactive demonstrations for customers. The company has indicated that household deployment for tasks such as operating coffee machines, loading dishwashers, folding clothes, and straightening kitchens remains a medium-term goal.[3][5]
Midea confirmed a CNY 1.5 billion ($208 million USD) investment specifically in an embodied intelligence technology platform to develop service robots capable of real household tasks.[17]
The MIRO series enters a competitive landscape where several major home appliance manufacturers are developing humanoid robots, each leveraging their respective smart home ecosystems and supply chain advantages.
Haier Group, China's largest home appliance brand, unveiled its HIVA Haiwa humanoid robot at the Appliance & Electronics World Expo (AWE 2025) in Shanghai in July 2025. Built in partnership with RobotEra (Star Era Technology), HIVA Haiwa is a wheeled humanoid with 44 degrees of freedom focused exclusively on household tasks such as cooking, cleaning, and laundry management. Unlike Midea's dual-track approach, Haier has concentrated primarily on consumer-facing robots from the outset, though its February 2025 acquisition of a controlling stake in Shanghai STEP Electric Corporation for RMB 2.5 billion gave the company a foothold in industrial robotics as well.[19]
| Feature | Midea MIRO / MIRO U | Haier HIVA Haiwa | LG CLOiD |
|---|---|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Midea Group | Haier Group | LG Electronics |
| Country | China | China | South Korea |
| Year unveiled | 2025 | 2025 | 2026 (CES) |
| Primary focus | Industrial / manufacturing | Consumer / household | Consumer / household |
| Locomotion | Wheeled / wheeled-legged | Wheeled | Wheeled |
| Arms | 2 (MIRO) / 6 (MIRO U) | 2 | 2 |
| Total DOF | 23 (MIRO) / 40+ (MIRO U) | 44 | 14+ (arms only) |
| Robotics heritage | KUKA (acquired 2017) | RobotEra partnership; STEP Electric acquisition | Robostar acquisition; investments in Figure AI, AgiBot |
| Smart home platform | M.Smart / MevoX | Haier Smart Home / UhomeOS | LG ThinQ |
| Connected devices | 140+ million | 73+ million | 300,000+ ThinQ ON households |
| Status (early 2026) | Pilot deployment at factories | Prototype (teleoperated) | Prototype / demonstration |
LG Electronics, the South Korean conglomerate, unveiled its CLOiD humanoid robot at CES 2026 in Las Vegas. CLOiD is a wheeled home assistant powered by Vision Language Models (VLM) and Vision Language Action (VLA) technology, targeting a "Zero Labor Home" vision. LG has pursued a hybrid strategy combining internal R&D through its HS Robotics Lab with strategic investments in multiple robotics companies including Figure AI, AgiBot, and Dyna Robotics. LG also unveiled its AXIUM actuator brand for supplying robotic components to third-party manufacturers.[20]
Beyond appliance manufacturers, Midea's MIRO competes in the broader industrial humanoid robot space against dedicated robotics companies. Tesla's Optimus is targeting general-purpose applications with planned production beginning in 2026. Figure AI's Figure 02 is already deployed at BMW's manufacturing facility. Chinese competitors include Unitree with its H1 and H2 models, UBTECH with its Walker series, and AgiBot with its industrial-focused platforms.[21]
Midea's position in the humanoid robotics market is distinguished by several factors:
Midea's MIRO development aligns with Chinese government priorities for humanoid robotics. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has appointed robotics founders to a national humanoid robotics committee, reflecting government-level commitment to automation as a response to industrial modernization needs and demographic challenges posed by an aging population.[3]
The Chinese government's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) is expected to prioritize robotics development. Guangdong Province, where Midea is headquartered, has announced dedicated investments in AI and robotics industries as part of this broader national strategy.[22]
Midea's humanoid robotics strategy is positioned at the intersection of three major trends: the global push toward factory automation, the Chinese government's emphasis on robotics as a strategic industry, and the convergence of AI and physical machines.
With its 60 billion yuan investment commitment for AI and robotics R&D over 2026-2029, Midea is signaling that humanoid robots will be a central pillar of its business transformation from a home appliance manufacturer into a global technology conglomerate. The company's ability to deploy robots in its own extensive factory network, combined with its KUKA heritage and smart home ecosystem, provides a vertically integrated foundation that few competitors can replicate.[14]
The industrial MIRO series is expected to continue iterating toward broader factory deployment, while the consumer Meila series represents a longer-term bet on household service robots. Wei Chang has acknowledged that household applications face greater complexity and cost challenges than industrial use cases, suggesting that commercial deployment of home robots remains several years away.[11]