World Robot Conference
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The World Robot Conference (WRC; Chinese: 世界机器人大会) is an annual international robotics conference and exhibition held in Beijing, China, since 2015. It is the largest dedicated robotics event organized by the Chinese government and has become one of the biggest annual robotics gatherings worldwide by exhibitor count, exhibition area, and visitor numbers. The conference is co-hosted by the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), and the Beijing Municipal People's Government, with the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE) handling day-to-day organization. Since 2016 it has been held at the Beijing Etrong International Exhibition and Convention Center (later renamed Beiren Yichuang International Convention and Exhibition Center) in Yizhuang, Beijing's Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as Beijing E-Town.
The WRC blends three formats in one event: a multi-day conference with keynote speeches and forums, a large trade exhibition (the World Robot Expo), and a multi-track competition called the World Robot Contest. Since 2023, the conference has become the most prominent global showcase for Chinese humanoid robot development. The 2024 edition, held August 21 to 25, debuted 27 different humanoid robot models in a single hall, then a record. The 2025 edition, held August 8 to 12, expanded that to about 50 full-body humanoid manufacturers and roughly 1,500 exhibits across more than 50,000 square meters of show floor.
The World Robot Conference grew out of China's 2015 industrial policy push to make robotics a strategic sector. The State Council's Made in China 2025 plan, released in May 2015, identified high-end CNC machine tools and robotics as one of ten priority industries. Two months later, MIIT, CAST, and the Beijing municipal government announced that Beijing would host an annual top-level international robotics meeting. The first WRC opened on November 23, 2015, at the National Convention Center next to the Olympic Green, under the theme "Synergy and Integration for Shared Prosperity, Leading the Intelligent Society." Experts from 13 countries and 12 international robotics organizations attended. From 2016 onward, the conference moved to a permanent venue in Beijing's Yizhuang district, where the Etrong (later Beiren) Convention Center had opened in September 2016 specifically to anchor major Beijing trade events.
From the start, WRC was conceived as more than a trade show. It bundles a high-level government opening ceremony, technical forums modelled on academic conferences such as ICLR and the IEEE robotics conferences, an industry exhibition, and a competition track. Senior Chinese officials, often a Politburo member or the Beijing party secretary, deliver opening remarks. International speakers from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), and major foreign companies such as ABB, KUKA, and Yaskawa have headlined keynote sessions every year.
The table below lists every edition with its dates, theme, and venue, drawn from the official WRC website, the Beijing municipal government, and Chinese state media archives.
| Year | Edition | Dates | Theme | Venue |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 1st | Nov 23 to 25 | Synergy and Integration for Shared Prosperity, Leading the Intelligent Society | National Convention Center, Beijing |
| 2016 | 2nd | Oct 21 to 25 | Co-creation, Sharing, Win-Win, Ushering in the Intelligent Age | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2017 | 3rd | Aug 23 to 27 | Innovation, Entrepreneurship, Creation, Embracing the Intelligent Society | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2018 | 4th | Aug 15 to 19 | Creating New Intelligent Momentum, Sharing the New Era of Openness | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2019 | 5th | Aug 20 to 25 | Intelligent New Ecology, Open New Era | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2020 | 6th | Late 2020 (COVID-disrupted) | Reduced format due to pandemic, partially online | Limited in-person sessions, Beijing |
| 2021 | 7th | Sep 10 to 13 | Sharing New Achievements, Infusing New Momentum | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2022 | 8th | Aug 18 to 21 | Co-creation, Sharing, Consultation, and Win-Win | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2023 | 9th | Aug 16 to 22 | Open Innovation, Gather and Share the Future | Beijing Etrong International Convention Center |
| 2024 | 10th | Aug 21 to 25 | Co-Fostering New Quality Productive Forces for a Shared Intelligent Future | Beiren Yichuang International Convention and Exhibition Center |
| 2025 | 11th | Aug 8 to 12 | Making Robots Smarter, Making Embodied Agents More Intelligent | Beiren Yichuang International Convention and Exhibition Center |
The 2020 edition was significantly affected by COVID-19 travel restrictions in China. Public information about it is sparser than for any other year, and by all available accounts the in-person component was scaled back, with most of the forum content shifted to online live streams. The conference resumed full in-person operation in 2021. The Baidu encyclopaedia entry on WRC, the closest thing to an official chronological record, lists no separate 2020 edition with named dates and theme.
WRC sits within an elaborate state-industry structure. The four lead hosts publicly listed each year are:
The day-to-day organizer is the Chinese Institute of Electronics (CIE), one of CAST's largest member societies, in cooperation with the China Robot Industry Alliance and the World Robot Cooperation Organization (WRCO). The latter is a CIE-led international platform launched in 2018 to give the conference a multilateral wrapper. Local partners include the Beijing Yizhuang Investment Holding Company, which manages the convention centre, and various Chinese banks and tech firms acting as sponsors.
The conference is technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, which lends academic legitimacy and helps recruit international keynote speakers. WRC is not a peer-reviewed academic conference; the technical program runs as invited talks rather than refereed papers.
A WRC edition typically runs five to eight days and consists of four parallel components.
Conference (forum) track. Three or four days of keynotes and panel sessions, usually grouped into a main forum, a youth forum, and a series of vertical forums on industry topics such as medical robotics, intelligent manufacturing, security and defence robotics, and embodied intelligence. Speakers include senior MIIT officials, foreign IFR and IEEE leaders, university researchers, and CEOs of major robot companies.
Exhibition (World Robot Expo). Five days of trade-show floor, open both to professional buyers and (for two to three days) to the general public. The 2024 expo had 169 exhibiting companies and over 600 products. The 2025 expo grew to roughly 200 companies, more than 1,500 exhibits, and over 100 product world premieres, with the show floor exceeding 50,000 square meters for the first time.
World Robot Contest. A multi-track competition run alongside the conference (see next section).
Supporting activities. Government policy releases, MOU signings between Chinese local governments and robot companies, investor matchmaking sessions, and recruitment fairs.
The opening ceremony, held on day one in the main hall of the convention centre, has become a closely watched political event. Opening ceremonies have been attended by Politburo Standing Committee member Yin Li, former MIIT minister and CAST chair Wan Gang, MIIT minister Li Lecheng, and Beijing party secretary Yin Yong, among others.
The World Robot Contest (WRC, sharing the same English acronym as the parent conference) is the competition track held alongside the exhibition. It is one of the largest robot competition series in China, drawing more than 7,000 teams and over 13,000 contestants in 2024, according to figures published by CAST. Teams come from over 10 countries, with the bulk from Chinese universities and high schools.
The contest is organized into four main events that change in detail year to year but generally cover:
| Track | Focus |
|---|---|
| Tri-Co Robot Challenge | Cooperation, coexistence, and cognition between humans and robots; tasks span service robotics, manipulation, and rescue scenarios |
| BCI Controlled Robot Contest | Brain-computer interface algorithms for SSVEP and motor-imagery EEG signals; published academic findings appear in Brain Science Advances and similar journals |
| Robot Application Contest | Industrial-style tasks such as automated assembly, inspection, and warehouse logistics |
| Youth Robot Design Contest | Educational robotics for primary, middle, and high-school students |
The BCI Controlled Robot Contest is one of the largest BCI competitions in the world. Algorithm tracks include a Turing-style test in which contestants control virtual soccer-playing robots through EEG signals, and standardized SSVEP and motor-imagery decoding tasks evaluated against shared datasets. Contest results have been the basis for several peer-reviewed survey papers in 2023 and later years.
The focus of the WRC has shifted as the Chinese robot industry has matured.
| Period | Dominant themes | Notable tech storylines |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 to 2019 | Industrial robotics, surgical robotics, basic service robots | Foreign cobot vendors (ABB, KUKA, Universal Robots) prominent; Chinese cobot startups Estun, JAKA, Aubo emerge |
| 2020 to 2022 | Pandemic-related applications, AI integration, logistics robots | Disinfection and delivery robots feature heavily; AI vision and large-model tooling start appearing |
| 2023 | Humanoid robots emerging as a category | Unitree H1 unveiled publicly at WRC; Stardust Intelligence and other startups draw crowds |
| 2024 | Humanoid robots dominate | 27 humanoid models on display, including Unitree H1, Unitree G1, UBTECH Walker S, Fourier GR-1, Tien Kung 2.0, Astribot S1, Tora-One, and Tesla Optimus (in a glass case) |
| 2025 | Embodied intelligence and foundation models for robotics | About 50 full-body humanoid makers; over 100 product world premieres; Tien Kung Ultra (marathon-winning) on display; first World Humanoid Robot Games held immediately after at the National Speed Skating Oval |
The table below lists confirmed robots shown at recent WRC editions, with manufacturer and short notes. Most are Chinese, reflecting both the conference's industrial focus and the geography of humanoid robots startups, which by 2024 were concentrated in China.
| Robot | Manufacturer | Country | First major WRC showing | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unitree H1 | Unitree Robotics | China | 2023 | First Chinese full-size humanoid to walk reliably; 1.8 m, 47 kg |
| Unitree G1 | Unitree Robotics | China | 2024 | Consumer-priced humanoid; 1.27 m, 35 kg; from RMB 99,000 (about USD 13,900); jogged at over 2 m/s on the show floor |
| Fourier GR-1 | Fourier Intelligence | China | 2023 | Shanghai-built bipedal rehab/research humanoid |
| Fourier GR-2 / GR-3 | Fourier Intelligence | China | 2024 / 2025 | GR-3 has 55 degrees of freedom and 12-DoF dexterous hands; designed for emotional interaction |
| Xiaomi CyberOne | Xiaomi Robotics | China | Demonstrated at WRC after 2022 reveal | Xiaomi's first full-size humanoid prototype |
| Walker S / Walker S1 | UBTECH Robotics | China | 2024 | Deployed on Nio, Geely, and FAW Group vehicle assembly lines; performed Audi RS5 tire inspection at WRC 2024 in 60 to 80 seconds |
| Tien Kung 2.0 | Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (X-Humanoid) | China | 2024 | State-backed open platform humanoid; Tien Kung Ultra later won the Beijing humanoid half-marathon |
| Astribot S1 | Stardust Intelligence | China | 2024 | Mobile dual-arm humanoid; demonstrated calligraphy, yangqin playing, sugar painting |
| Tora-One | PaXini Technology | China | 2024 | 47 DoF; bionic hands with about 2,000 tactile sensors |
| EngineAI SE01 / SA01 | EngineAI | China | 2024 | Shenzhen humanoid startup; 2025 demos featured viral kung-fu dancing |
| Galbot G1 | Beijing Galaxy General Robot | China | 2024 | Wheeled-base dual-arm humanoid for retail and home logistics |
| Leju humanoids | Leju Robotics | China | 2024 | Service humanoids running Huawei's Pangu large language model |
| Tesla Optimus | Tesla | United States | 2024 | Beijing debut; displayed motionless in a glass case alongside a Cybertruck |
| Boston Dynamics Atlas / Spot | Boston Dynamics | United States | Various years | Often shown via partner booths and video reels rather than as physical demos |
| Industrial cobots | ABB, Yaskawa, Fanuc, KUKA | Switzerland, Japan, Germany | All years | Foreign industrial robot leaders maintain booths despite trade tensions |
| Chinese cobots | Estun, JAKA, AUBO, Inovance | China | All years since 2017 | Domestic alternatives to ABB and KUKA; major share of the 2024 expo floor |
WRC has become the most-watched annual snapshot of where the Chinese robot industry stands. International Federation of Robotics statistics show China has been the world's largest installer of industrial robots every year since 2013, and by 2023 was installing more new units annually than the rest of the world combined. The conference functions as the public-facing summit for that ecosystem.
Three features set it apart from other major robotics events. First, scale and government involvement: opening ceremonies double as policy events, with senior officials announcing initiatives such as Beijing's robotics industrial parks, the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, and national humanoid roadmaps. Second, commercial product launches: unlike academic conferences such as ICRA or IROS, WRC is dominated by product unveils, demo runs, and order announcements rather than peer-reviewed papers. Third, state media coverage: Xinhua, CCTV, China Daily, Global Times, and People's Daily run multi-day coverage that effectively makes the show a national event rather than an industry-only one.
WRC is also where the Chinese state has chosen to showcase its push into humanoids. By the 2024 edition, Chinese humanoid startups represented roughly half of all known global humanoid companies according to industry trackers, and the WRC floor that August was the densest concentration of physical humanoid robots ever assembled. The 2025 edition then nearly doubled that count and led directly into the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, held August 14 to 17, 2025 at the National Speed Skating Oval. 280 teams from 16 countries fielded more than 500 humanoid robots across 26 events, including 100m hurdles, football, kung fu, and warehouse-style task challenges.
WRC reflects several long-running shifts in the global robotics market. China has been the largest single national market for new industrial robots for over a decade. The IFR's World Robotics 2024 report counted Chinese new installations at roughly 276,000 units in 2023, more than half the global total. Domestic vendors such as Estun, Inovance, JAKA, AUBO, and SIASUN have steadily taken share from foreign incumbents in lower-end segments and increasingly in mid-range cobots and SCARA arms.
On the humanoid side, the 2024 WRC marked a transition from research demos to mass-production preparation. UBTECH announced production deployments of its Walker S models on the assembly lines of Nio, Geely, and FAW Group's Audi joint venture. Unitree began selling the G1 humanoid as a consumer-grade product at a price point that undercut comparable Western prototypes by an order of magnitude. The Beijing municipal government, through the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, set explicit 2027 targets for Chinese humanoid mass production capable of useful manipulation and locomotion in industrial settings.
Visitor numbers have grown alongside the ecosystem. Cumulative attendance across the eleven editions through 2025 is estimated at roughly 1.8 million visitors. The 2023 edition by itself drew about 600 exhibitors and reportedly more than 800,000 attendees over the seven public days, according to Beijing government press materials, although figures vary between sources and may include online viewership.
WRC sits in a crowded global calendar of robotics conferences and trade fairs. The table below contrasts the major venues, drawing on the IFR's industry-event listings and each event's official records.
| Event | Location | Frequency | Started | Primary focus | Approximate scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| World Robot Conference (WRC) | Beijing, China | Annual | 2015 | Industry, policy, humanoid showcase, exhibition | About 200 companies, 1,500+ exhibits, 800,000+ visitors (2023) |
| ICRA (IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation) | Rotates globally | Annual | 1984 | Academic; peer-reviewed papers | About 5,000 attendees |
| IROS (IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems) | Rotates globally | Annual | 1988 | Academic; peer-reviewed papers | About 4,000 attendees |
| Automatica | Munich, Germany | Biennial | 2004 | Industrial automation and robotics | About 800 exhibitors, 45,000 attendees |
| Hannover Messe | Hannover, Germany | Annual | 1947 | Broad industrial expo with robotics segment | About 4,000 exhibitors, 130,000 attendees |
| CES | Las Vegas, USA | Annual | 1967 | Consumer electronics with robotics segment | 130,000+ attendees |
| RoboBusiness | San Jose, USA | Annual | 2004 | Industry-focused robotics for North America | About 2,000 attendees |
| iREX (International Robot Exhibition) | Tokyo, Japan | Biennial | 1974 | Japanese industrial robotics | About 600 exhibitors |
| World Humanoid Robot Games | Beijing, China | First held 2025 | 2025 | Humanoid sports and tasks | 280 teams, 500+ robots in 2025 |
The contrast with ICRA and IROS is sharpest. Those events anchor the academic calendar and rotate locations; WRC is fixed in Beijing and dominated by commercial demos and policy events. Compared with Hannover Messe and Automatica, WRC has a stronger humanoid focus and a much heavier government presence. Compared with iREX in Tokyo, WRC is annual rather than biennial and now larger.
US-China trade and technology tensions have shaped which Western companies show up and how. ABB, KUKA, Yaskawa, and Fanuc, all with major Chinese factories and customer bases, exhibit consistently. Most leading US humanoid startups, including Boston Dynamics, Figure, 1X, and Apptronik, have not sent physical robots to recent WRC editions. Tesla brought Optimus in 2024 but kept it static behind glass next to a Cybertruck and did not run live demonstrations, attracting some derision in Chinese commentary. Foreign academic speakers continue to attend, and the IFR maintains its long-standing relationship with the conference; IFR President Marina Bill spoke at the 2024 opening.
Beijing has used WRC partly as a sovereign-tech showcase, signalling that China can produce competitive humanoids domestically without dependence on foreign hardware. State media coverage is unusually heavy and tends to frame each edition as evidence of progress under Made in China 2025 and the 14th Five-Year Plan for robot industry development. The presence of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Galbot, EngineAI, Leju, and other Chinese-only humanoids in the central exhibition halls underlines the messaging.
Several structural changes have set in over the last three editions.
The Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (also called Beijing Innovation Center of Humanoid Robotics, with the public-facing name X-Humanoid) was established in 2023 with backing from the Beijing Yizhuang state holding company and from UBTECH and Xiaomi. Its Tien Kung platform, an open-source full-size humanoid running on a published embodied AI stack, has anchored WRC's central humanoid display since 2024. Tien Kung Ultra won the inaugural Beijing Yizhuang Humanoid Half Marathon on April 19, 2025, and Tien Kung 3.0 won the Beijing Yizhuang Robot Warrior Challenge on April 18, 2025, both events feeding directly into the WRC narrative.
The World Humanoid Robot Games, announced in early 2025, ran August 14 to 17, 2025 at the National Speed Skating Oval (the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics venue). The Games are formally a separate event from WRC but are timed and located so that the conference and the Games function as a continuous Beijing humanoid week.
The 2026 edition has been scheduled for August at the same Yizhuang venue. Planning materials describe a continued focus on embodied AI, humanoid mass production milestones, and tighter integration with foundation model developers for robot perception and control.
The World Robot Conference, the Dartmouth Conference of 1956, and other landmark gatherings sit on a long timeline of events that have shaped public understanding of artificial intelligence and robotics, but WRC stands out for the way it fuses an industry trade show with a national policy stage and a world-leading competition track in a single venue.