China’s humanoid robotics industry has reached a new milestone as UBTech Robotics secures a 264 million yuan contract to deploy industrial-grade humanoid robots across major border checkpoints in Guangxi. The rollout will begin in December and will introduce advanced autonomous robots into frontline public service, logistics, and industrial inspection roles.
The agreement was signed with a humanoid robot innovation center in Fangchenggang, a coastal city in southern China. The deployment will feature UBTech’s Walker S2, a next-generation humanoid robot launched this year and recognized as the world’s first model capable of autonomously swapping its own battery for uninterrupted 24-hour operation.
This project marks one of the largest real-world government applications of humanoid robots in China to date and reflects the accelerating transition of embodied AI from research laboratories into large-scale public and industrial service environments.
Smart Border Services Powered by Embodied AI
Under the pilot program, Walker S2 robots will operate at border checkpoints to assist with visitor guidance, personnel flow management, patrol support, logistics handling, and commercial service support. At the same time, the robots will be deployed in steel, copper, and aluminum facilities to conduct routine inspections, safety checks, and material monitoring.
Across the country, humanoid robots are already playing a growing role in airports, government facilities, public events, and urban management systems. Multilingual service robots are being used for immigration assistance at major international events, while patrol robots are now a familiar feature in several leading smart cities. These deployments highlight China’s ability to integrate robotics directly into everyday public services at scale.
Walker S2: Industrial-Grade Design With Continuous Operation
Standing approximately 1.76 meters tall, the Walker S2 features 52 degrees of freedom across its articulated structure. Its fourth-generation dexterous hands, with 11 degrees of freedom each, enable sub-millimeter precision for delicate assembly, inspection, and handling tasks.
Each arm can lift up to 15 kilograms across a vertical workspace spanning from ground level to 1.8 meters. High-torque waist and leg joints enable deep squatting, bending, and stable motion across rugged industrial environments. A defining innovation is the robot’s autonomous hot-swappable dual-battery system, which allows it to replace its own depleted battery in around three minutes—enabling near-continuous operations without human intervention.
For perception and control, the Walker S2 integrates UBTech’s BrainNet 2.0 and Co-Agent AI systems, supporting multimodal reasoning, autonomous task planning, and intelligent exception handling. Its RGB binocular stereo vision system provides human-like depth perception for complex factory, logistics, and inspection environments, while advanced dynamic balancing algorithms ensure stability even at movement speeds of up to 7.2 kilometers per hour.
Manufacturing Scale and Industry Growth Accelerate
UBTech reports cumulative orders for the Walker series have surpassed 1.1 billion yuan since shipments began this month. The company plans to deliver 500 industrial humanoid robots by the end of the year and expand production tenfold next year. Its long-term target is to achieve annual output capacity of 10,000 units by 2027, supported by continuous cost reductions and manufacturing optimization.
At the national level, China has also strengthened institutional support for the humanoid robotics sector with the formal establishment of a national humanoid robotics committee under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. This move reinforces coordinated development across policy, research, industrial manufacturing, and commercial deployment.
Humanoid Robotics Strengthen China’s Smart Economy
Humanoid robots are rapidly expanding across China’s economy—from healthcare and elderly care to urban sanitation, traffic management, automated delivery systems, and public safety services. The entry of humanoid robots into border operations adds another strategic application to this growing ecosystem.
As embodied AI continues to mature, humanoid robotics is becoming an important engine of productivity growth, industrial upgrading, and smart city development. The Guangxi deployment of Walker S2 reflects not only technological progress, but also China’s ability to rapidly translate advanced robotics research into large-scale economic and social value.