China's robot makers needed six months to book 55% of a whole year's revenue — and 49 state firms now have their own hall in Beijing

The World Robot Conference opened in Beijing on 19 August 2026 and runs to 23 August at the exhibition centre in Beijing E-Town. Organisers report more than 300 exhibitors, 36% more than a year ago, filling 50,000 square metres across four halls with over 2,000 exhibits — among them more than 150 products shown publicly for the first time anywhere. The numbers quoted at the opening say more about the industry than the floor plan does. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology put robotics revenue at 300 billion yuan (about 44.45 billion US dollars) for the whole of 2025, after five years of average growth above 20% a year. For the first half of 2026 alone the figure is 165.5 billion yuan, up 24.5% year on year — in six months the sector booked roughly 55% of what it took all of last year to earn. One change at this edition is easy to miss and hard to overstate: for the first time the show has a dedicated zone for central state-owned enterprises, 49 of them, presenting 12 application scenarios. Robotics in China is no longer only a start-up story told in funding rounds; it is being staged as state industrial infrastructure, next to a consumer-facing "robot consumption street" where machines cook and serve. The programme itself has been split into themed days — a release day, a procurement day, a developer day and two public open days — which puts buyers and developers in the building on separate dates rather than in one undifferentiated crowd. Organisers also announced a free trial programme lending humanoids, quadrupeds and dexterous hands to innovation teams, and an initiative on intelligent robots "for the positive and for good" aimed at international cooperation. For a catalogue like ours the practical consequence is the 150 global debuts: the profiles worth writing in the coming weeks are being unveiled this week.