A humanoid robot made by Robotera handles packages during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 18. | AFP-JIJI
Aug 27, 2026
While Moonshot’s Kimi K3 was blowing up online, at China’s recent and biggest artificial intelligence summit in Shanghai, hundreds of humanoid robots clanking around the exhibition hall stole the show.
Crowds packed in to watch them box, make lattes and do a whole lot of laundry. Even as a skeptic of the rush to build machines in our image — and of some of the breathless coverage — witnessing the sheer scale made the spectacle at the World AI Conference hard to dismiss.
Still, outside tightly timed, choreographed demos, most of the robots stood inert. And even as they sorted objects, stocked shelves or played piano, the movements were slow and jerky. At one booth, humanoids built a Great Wall out of Legos, but I spotted attendants following behind to fix misplaced pieces. Yunmu Intelligent Manufacturing’s exhibit drew throngs for its incredibly lifelike bots, complete with wrinkles and facial hair. It was the first time I mistook one standing behind me for an actual human being. But the illusion stopped when they couldn’t seem to do more than rotate their heads or stare ahead with dead eyes.
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