In Wuhan, a 12,000 square metre facility houses young graduates teaching humanoid robots to perform household tasks like serving steamed buns and folding laundry. The Rmb200mn ($29mn) Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Center tracks every movement through cameras and sensors, creating vast training datasets.

China's state-backed push reflects President Xi Jinping's ambition to dominate global science and technology. The government identified 'embodied intelligence' as a priority industry in its 2026-30 five-year plan, funding dozens of robot training farms from wealthy Hangzhou to interior Mianyang. These centers collect data that could help robots learn generalized skills without explicit programming.

While the approach faces technical hurdles like data transferability between different hardware platforms, it's already sustaining China's humanoid robot manufacturers. Sales to data collection centers accounted for about one-fifth of China's 20,000+ humanoid robot shipments last year. The Wuhan center alone purchased 46 robots from AgiBot at Rmb350,000 each, demonstrating how government support is creating both technological and commercial momentum in China's AI robotics sector.