Shenzhen's Robotics Industry Achieves Record Growth, Leads China

Shenzhen’s robotics industry achieved record output in 2025, rising 20% year on year to exceed 242 billion yuan (USD 35.4 billion). The city has cemented its position as China’s leading robotics powerhouse due to a sophisticated supply chain and a wide range of real-world applications.

Credit: X Square Robot

The Fair of AI and Robotics Plus (Fair Plus) trade show in Shenzhen showcased practical robotics tasks. Robots demonstrated sorting supermarket stock, serving popcorn, and transporting large boxes.

Among the displays, Shenzhen-based X Square Robot showed wheel-based humanoids using its self-developed Wall-A embodied foundation model to pick up rubbish. The Quanta X1 Pro robot, currently used in homes in Shenzhen, handles chores such as folding laundry and scooping cat litter.

Shenzhen manufactured nearly 8 million service robots last year, accounting for 43% of China’s total output in this category. The city also produced 194,900 industrial robots last year, representing a quarter of the national output, placing it at the top nationally for both core robotics categories.

The revenue of Shenzhen’s robotics industry cluster jumped 34% to 37.9 billion yuan last year. In terms of technological innovation, the city was home to 4,676 companies holding robotics-related patents in 2025, an increase of nearly 20%.

Embodied intelligence, a branch of artificial intelligence operating through a physical body, was identified for the first time by the Chinese government as a key future industry. This recognition came in a work report delivered at the annual legislative meeting in March.

Shenzhen has nurtured prominent robotics start-ups, including Engine AI, which received praise for performing the world’s first front flip by a robot. UBTech, another local firm, became the first Chinese humanoid robot maker to go public in Hong Kong.

Chief Operating Officer Yang Qian of X Square stated that Shenzhen possesses a world-leading hardware supply chain cluster that significantly shortens the cycle for customised components. Qian noted that custom parts can be delivered in days compared with months overseas.

Qian added that the costs and time required for product iteration in Shenzhen are only a tenth of those abroad. This can substantially reduce the financial and time burdens for mass production.

The local government supports the opening of industrial, retail, and community scenarios for robot deployment, enabling robotics firms to test products and iterate models quickly. X Square plans to expand its home robot line-up next month with an upgraded humanoid powered by its next-generation Wall-B foundation model.

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• Shenzhen's robotics industry output reached a record 242 billion yuan (USD 35.4 billion) in 2025, marking a 20% year-on-year increase.

• The city leads China in both service robot and industrial robot production, manufacturing nearly 8 million service units and 194,900 industrial units last year.

• Shenzhen’s advanced hardware supply chain allows for rapid, cost-effective product development and iteration.

Source: SCMP

Chinese AI Short Dramas Capture Global Audiences

AI-generated short dramas featuring animals and absurd narratives are gaining massive traction across Asia and beyond, with millions of viewers tuning into micro-series on platforms like Douyin and Xiaohongshu. These dramas, often under a minute long, are captivating audiences with their over-the-top storytelling and unexpected twists.

Credit: PRESTIGE

A peculiar genre of melodramatic short videos is dominating social media feeds, showcasing cats and dogs in workplace rivalries, romantic betrayals, and rags-to-riches transformations. All videos are generated entirely by artificial intelligence, attracting enthusiastic adoption, particularly among Thai audiences despite language barriers.

This trend originated in China, where AI pet dramas have exploded on platforms. One viral clip features a downtrodden ginger cat mocked by a wealthy white cat and her dog boyfriend, who later reinvents himself as a successful construction worker. This video has amassed nearly 150 million views.

The format mirrors China's popular micro drama genre, with episodes running under a minute, packing maximum drama, and ending on cliffhangers. The appeal lies in the absurd contrast of familiar soap opera tropes played out by adorable animals.

One popular series features a humble Bichon Frise as a disguised princess navigating palace bullying before finding her prince, while another follows an orange tabby through 82 episodes of workplace drama. For creators, new AI video tools have significantly lowered production costs.

What once required professional teams, actors, and sets can now be produced by one or two people with a computer and subscription software costing a few hundred THB monthly. Top creators report earning CNY 20,000 monthly from advertising revenue alone.

Additional income is generated from product placements woven naturally into storylines. This trend shows no signs of slowing, with AI tools becoming more sophisticated and accessible.

Another Chinese AI-generated short drama, "Saving the Fox in the Snow," has gone viral across platforms like Douyin, Bilibili, and Xiaohongshu, becoming China's first "traffic tsunami" of 2026. This darkly comedic drama, featuring a "Shaw Brothers martial arts" aesthetic, achieved popularity without celebrity endorsements or professional promotion.

The story flips the classic romantic trope of a scholar rescuing a spirit fox in a snowstorm. In this version, the scholar leaves food, including a spicy salted duck, for the fox. The twist reveals a woman who is the duck that froze all winter, gained sentience, turned dark, and is now seeking revenge.

The dialogue begins with, "Have you ever saved a fox with a spicy salted duck in the snow?" "Yes! Are you that fox?" "No, I'm the duck you abandoned. Die!" The devastating impact of this twist lies in its destruction of audience expectations, subverting a romantic drama into absurdist comedy.

The narrative framework allows for endless recycling, with even bacteria seeking revenge, amplifying the absurdity. This absurdity has taken over the internet because modern people are using online absurdity to counter absurdity in reality.

The spicy salted duck's revenge offers a "safe outlet for anger," tapping into dissatisfaction with unreciprocated efforts and overlooked kindness, providing stress relief. It delivers a three-stage punch from setup to expectation and then subversion within 10 seconds, perfect for fragmented communication.

The drama also rebels against traditional narratives where kindness begets kindness, providing an emotional outlet for situations where "good deeds go unrewarded." The use of the "Shaw Brothers filter," with its half-lit, grainy Hong Kong-style lighting, pays homage to 1960s martial arts cinema.

This retro aesthetic, combined with the duck's shouts of "Your life is mine!", amplifies the absurdity through temporal dislocation, making it memorable. "Saving the Fox in the Snow" has created a participatory, open-ended "meme universe."

The basic framework leaves room for people to create their own versions. AI tools now allow ordinary individuals to generate cinema-quality clips in hours, democratising content creation and forming a unique decentralised dissemination chain.

Brands quickly recognised the traffic potential. The official account of a spicy salted duck brand, Chuanwa, joined the trend, playing along with netizens' imaginations and producing its own finale using AI. This approach maximised public goodwill and transformed comment sections into product-planting opportunities.

Chuanwa's move captured windfall traffic and executed a phenomenal brand marketing campaign at minimal cost, resulting in skyrocketing brand favorability and exposure. AI is now a core engine for reconstructing brand play, expanding marketing boundaries, and maximising creative efficiency.

AI technology compresses content production from months to hours, enabling small and medium brands to achieve daily or weekly updates and batch output; a single piece of content can be produced for a few hundred USD. This allows for soft placements and mass co-creation, transforming marketing from unilateral pushing of ads to playing with users.

The spicy salted duck case demonstrates that smaller brands can overtake larger ones through agile response, without massive budgets or celebrity endorsements. The use of absurdity in these dramas provides a rare form of healing and a safe emotional outlet for modern audiences.

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• AI-generated short dramas, featuring animals and absurd plots, are widely popular across Asia.

• These micro-dramas are short, highly dramatic, and cost-effective to produce with AI tools.

• "Saving the Fox in the Snow" went viral by subverting classic narratives with dark, absurd humour.

Source: PRESTIGE, DOTDOT NEWS

Figure Humanoid Robot Deliveries Double Monthly, Signaling Production Scale-Up

Figure, a humanoid robot company, has seen its robot deliveries double each month for the last three months. This follows the shipment of approximately 150 units last year.

Credit: FIGURE

CEO Brett Adcock shared this data on Threads, though specific figures were not explicitly provided on the chart. Deductions suggest shipments may have reached around 60 units in Feb. 2026, 120 in Mar. 2026, and 240 in Apr. 2026.

This growth indicates Figure is beginning to scale production of its highly capable humanoid robots. Adcock previously stated plans to scale production to millions of units.

Credit: FIGURE

The company must now believe its platform is sufficiently capable for scaling. Deciding when to scale is a major challenge for humanoid robotics organisations.

Scaling too early risks depleting cash and disappointing the market, while scaling too late allows competitors to gain market share. It is possible Figure is approaching this critical phase.

Credit: FIGURE

The Figure 03 platform features an upgraded main camera system, a camera in each hand, and fingertip tactile sensors. These sensors can detect forces as light as 3 grams.

At its launch, Figure 03 could perform domestic tasks such as folding clothes and loading a dishwasher. It also achieved a 90% component cost reduction compared to Figure 02.

This cost decline is essential for consumer-scale deployment. The company's BotQ production facility can produce up to 12,000 units per year, a significant step towards larger scale.

While Agibot shipped 5,000 humanoids over the last three months, Figure's robots are high-level units, not comparable to USD 5,000 toys or USD 20,000 low-end robots.

If Figure continues its monthly doubling, the gap with Chinese humanoid robot companies could lessen. The broader humanoid robot market shipped under 14,000 units globally in 2025.

Omdia forecasts the market will nearly double each year for the next decade, reaching 2.6 million annual units by 2035. Achieving this requires manufacturers to scale production without compromising quality.

Figure may be nearing the point of achieving this large-scale manufacturing capability.

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• Figure has doubled its humanoid robot deliveries monthly for the last three months.

• CEO Brett Adcock indicated plans to scale production to millions of units.

• The Figure 03 platform includes advanced cameras, tactile sensors, and a 90% component cost reduction from Figure 02.

Source: FORBES