Behind the remarkably rapid pace at which China Humanoid Robot (Shanghai) Co. has developed successive physical AI robot models lies its "data standardization capability." The company extracts high-quality data in a unified format from the signature technologies of various robot firms, accumulating and sharing it as a collective asset — building a state-led robotics ecosystem.
At the core of this ecosystem is the National-Local Co-built Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, which opened in January last year on the 7th and 8th floors of the company's headquarters. Officially designated as a "national-local co-construction" model by China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), the facility is tasked with integrating capabilities across robotics firms in line with the government's humanoid robot industry development plan.
The innovation center currently houses 133 humanoid robots across 13 models supplied by firms including Agibot, Fourier Intelligence and Shanghai Electric. Unlike individual companies that collect data centered on their own models, the Shanghai company cross-collects data from multiple robot types and standardizes it to maximize utility. "Around 300 robotics companies are developing some 130 product types based on unified data," a company official said on-site. "The reason we could rapidly improve Qinglong's modules and hardware is the continuously accumulated data."
Starting in October last year, the company expanded beyond Shanghai, establishing subsidiary training facilities at eight locations across China to collect data specialized for each region's core industries. Four sites — in Shanghai, Beijing, Henan Province and Jiangsu Province — are already operational. Five more in Hubei Province, Zhejiang Province, Guangdong Province, Chongqing and Shandong Province are under construction. A total of 395 humanoid robots have been deployed across the four completed training grounds. Over the past year, these robots collected 7.19 million data points through various simulation exercises. "The Shanghai Innovation Center serves as the 'leader' among the nine training facilities, collecting the most data and handling the most experimental industrial applications," the official explained.
The goal of data collection is clear: prioritize deployment in areas with high practical and social necessity. Beyond simple manufacturing floors, the center conducts diverse simulations focused on high-risk, high-intensity industrial settings such as nuclear reactor component cleaning, healthcare, new drug development and waste collection. Unlike private companies that focus on entertainment or household tasks, this facility sets its top development priority on replacing human labor in so-called "3D industries" — dirty, dangerous and difficult work.
Alongside the physical training grounds, the center has also built a digital simulation platform called "Gou." Co-developed with Shanghai University and other institutions, Gou is a high-performance embodied intelligence simulation platform that allows developers to verify training algorithms in a virtual environment before applying them to actual robots. This accelerates development speed and reduces trial and error, the company explained. "Because the collected data is diverse and sophisticated, Gou's accuracy is far higher than other virtual platforms," the official said.
Data collected and refined at each training facility is managed in an integrated system. Among this, data related to the early Qinglong model is being released through the open-source platform "OpenLong." The structure enables private companies and research institutions to expand applied technology development and commercialization based on verified, standardized data provided by the government.
The role of China Humanoid Robot (Shanghai) Co. is expected to grow further as the Chinese government increasingly emphasizes "standardization" in the humanoid robot industry. Last month, a technical committee under MIIT unveiled a "Comprehensive Humanoid Industry Standardization Framework" at the annual Humanoid and Embodied Intelligence Standardization (HEIS) conference, presenting evaluation criteria for foundational common areas, applications and finished products. Industry observers see this as a full-scale effort to overhaul technical standards that had lagged behind the rapid growth of China's humanoid robot sector. "China now has the world's most powerful robotics industry value chain, and data capability is at its center," the company said. "The most complete robot in the future will come from China."
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