Inside Shanghai's Robot Carnival: China's Humanoid Industry Has Left the Lab

MIT Technology Review sent a correspondent to a humanoid robot event in Shanghai described as a "carnival"—and the BBC profiled Chinese factory workers saying, *"I went to sleep, and the world changed."* The picture that emerges isn’t of a country racing to catch up. It’s of an industry that has already moved from benchmark competition to volume deployment and public demonstration.

Aug 25, 2026 at 16:23 4 5