In a DUDUONE robot 6S store in Baohe District, Hefei, staff members perform maintenance on robots. (File photo) Photo by Cheng Zhao, reporter for this newspaper.
By 2030, industrial robot output will rank among the top in the nation, humanoid robot output will enter the nation's first tier, and robot output in more than 10 niche fields including spraying, explosion-proof operations, warehousing and logistics, and photovoltaic cleaning will lead domestically. By 2035, a robot industry cluster with significant national influence will be established.
On September 28, the Information Office of the Provincial Government held a press conference, inviting responsible officials from the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Provincial Department of Finance, the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, and the Provincial Department of Science and Technology to interpret the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Robot Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Opinions") recently issued by the General Office of the Provincial Government.
Reporters learned from the press conference that the province will seize the strategic opportunities of the "15th Five-Year Plan," build robots and embodied intelligence into emerging pillar industries, go all out to capture the "peaks" of advantageous niche tracks, and march toward the "plateau" of the entire industry chain and full ecosystem. By 2030, industrial robot output will rank among the top in the nation, humanoid robot output will enter the nation's first tier, and robot output in more than 10 niche fields including spraying, explosion-proof operations, warehousing and logistics, and photovoltaic cleaning will lead domestically. By 2035, a robot industry cluster with significant national influence will be established.
Putting the Robot Industry "at the Top"
Why does the province attach such importance to the robot industry? First, it stems from the inevitable requirements of national strategy. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the national "15th Five-Year Plan" outline both explicitly proposed accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries such as robotics and promoting embodied intelligence as a new growth point for the economy. This year, the State Council approved intelligent robots as one of the six major emerging pillar industries to be focused on during the "15th Five-Year Plan," and relevant national ministries and commissions have intensively issued specialized support policies. The accelerated formation of the national-level policy system means that the robot industry has shifted from an "optional item" to a "mandatory question." The province's introduction of the "Implementation Opinions" at this time is precisely a proactive undertaking and concrete implementation of the national strategic deployment.
"This is a golden track with broad market prospects," said Shi Li, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology. As the best carrier for artificial intelligence, robots and embodied intelligence possess extremely strong technology spillover and industrial linkage effects, and are rapidly becoming the new generation of intelligent terminals after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. Relevant institutions predict that China's robot industry will enter a stage of explosive growth during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, with an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 20%. Research from the Development Research Center of the State Council indicates that the market size of China's embodied intelligence industry is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2035. "Faced with such a super new blue ocean in an explosive period, Anhui cannot be absent and must seize the strategic opportunity," Shi Li said.
More importantly, the province has a realistic foundation for developing the robot industry. At present, the province has formed an industrial layout led by the dual cores of Hefei and Wuhu with multi-point support from other cities, established a full-chain transformation channel from basic research to pilot testing and then to industrialization, and accumulated a solid foundation in complete machine manufacturing and scenario applications. In terms of innovation sourcing, the province possesses a number of high-level innovation platforms such as the University of Science and Technology of China and the Jianghuai Center, and the Qizhi Industrial Robot General Technology Foundation project has received high recognition from relevant parties. In terms of industrial scale, the province's robot industry scale and comprehensive competitiveness rank in the first echelon nationwide, industrial robot output has broken through the monthly average of 5,000 units, service robot output from January to August this year increased by 84.1% year-on-year, and 31 prototype models have been developed in the humanoid robot field. In terms of cross-sector integration, the province's automobile output and new energy vehicle output both rank first nationwide, and technologies such as automotive three-electric systems, precision manufacturing, sensors, and model algorithms can be directly transferred and transformed to robotics. "It can be said that robotics and embodied intelligence are the industries where Anhui has the best conditions and the most confidence to achieve breakthroughs first. Putting robots 'at the top' is not following the trend, but a strategic choice based on comparative advantages," Shi Li said.
Version 2.0 of the Robot Industry Policy
Last year, the General Office of the Provincial Government already issued and implemented the "Action Plan for the Development of Anhui Province's Intelligent Robot Industry." This time, the "Implementation Opinions" builds on the existing foundation with "advanced planning and upgraded tactics," and is also known as Version 2.0 of Anhui's robot industry policy.
The overall framework of the "Implementation Opinions" can be summarized as "one goal system, seven key tasks, and fourfold work guarantees," reflecting the organic unity of forward-thinking, catch-up thinking, and systematic thinking.
In addition to a clear timetable and roadmap, the seven key tasks proposed around the development goals are: optimizing the industrial development layout by strengthening industrial research and planning, highlighting industrial development priorities, promoting spatially differentiated layouts, deepening vehicle-machine coordinated development, and increasing layout efforts in complete machines, core components, intelligent models, and aftermarket segments; strengthening industrial technological innovation by building an innovation platform system, reinforcing key technology breakthroughs, supporting the development of "hit" products, and making robotics a key support direction for provincial science and technology攻坚 plans and industry chain collaborative innovation policies; collaboratively advancing "dual investment and dual introduction" by targeted recruitment of outstanding complete machine enterprises, key component enterprises, and ecosystem partners from around the world and the nation, and supporting qualified cities in issuing "recruitment orders" for top global talent; cultivating high-quality enterprises in tiers by nurturing platform-based enterprises with ecosystem leadership, supporting the growth of technology-based enterprises and supporting enterprises, and supporting enterprise mergers and acquisitions and the development of service-oriented manufacturing; strengthening scenario application support by opening up application scenarios, organizing scenario supply-demand matchmaking, promoting rapid replication of mature scenarios, encouraging government agencies and enterprises to take the lead in opening scenarios, and encouraging cities to create typical robot scenarios and districts; increasing fiscal and financial support by upgrading and expanding fiscal support, establishing a 10-billion-yuan robot industry fund cluster, and building a fiscal-financial coordination system; and building high-level industrial cooperation platforms by forming high-level strategic advisory committees, upgrading the level of industry associations, and hosting major brand events.
Among these, the fiscal-financial coordination system is particularly noteworthy. The "Implementation Opinions" proposes building a "fiscal + fund + credit + guarantee + insurance" five-in-one fiscal-financial coordination system, with 500 million yuan of provincial fiscal funds coordinated annually from 2027 to 2030, focusing on key technology breakthroughs, innovation platforms, scenario promotion, and talent think tanks; promoting the establishment of a new provincial robotics and embodied intelligence industry investment fund, adhering to early-stage investment, small-scale investment, hard technology investment, and long-term investment. "Using limited fiscal funds as a policy 'primer' to leverage more financial resources and social capital flowing into the robot industry, achieving a '1+1>2' aggregation effect of fiscal and financial policies, and injecting lasting momentum into the development of the robot industry and the cultivation of market entities," said Zhang Feng, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Finance.
Replicable and Operable Implementation Paths
The key to transforming the policy blueprint into industrial reality lies in finding operable and replicable implementation paths. From the information revealed at the press conference, the province's implementation paths have already shown distinctive characteristics: scenario-driven, vehicle-machine coordination as an advantage, and innovation ecosystem as support.
"Scenarios are the core engine for robot technology iteration, product validation, and scale application," said Li Xiaofan, a second-level inspector of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology. Around the goals of "finding validation scenarios for new technologies, finding promotion scenarios for mature products, and finding adapted products for rigid-demand scenarios," the province has built a closed-loop system of scenario mining, matchmaking and validation, benchmark creation, and batch promotion.
Specifically, the "Anhui Province Action Plan for Deepening Robot Scenario Applications (2026–2028)" has been compiled, the "three lists and one platform" for scenarios has been established, releasing scenario opportunity lists, supply capability lists, and promotion application lists, and a robot supply-demand matchmaking zone has been opened on the "Yiqi Service Cloud" platform for targeted and precise dispatch. From January to August this year, the province newly signed 81 robotics and embodied intelligence projects with an investment of 15.1 billion yuan, and high-quality enterprises such as Zhuji Dynamics, Yiyou Technology, Yuanhua Intelligence, and Youliqi have settled in Anhui. At the same time, scenario matchmaking has been extended down to enterprises, focusing on niche fields such as photovoltaic cleaning, grinding, and inspection, and seven sessions of the "Ji Yu You Ni" production-demand matchmaking activities have been carried out, achieving more than 40 cooperations, promoting the landing of 5 projects in Anhui, facilitating a 2-million-yuan grinding robot purchase order between Xinjingjie and Changyuan Hydraulic, promoting the entry of Zhongke Shengu intelligent inspection robots into Hefei West Railway Station, the batch application of Moja shopping guide robots in more than 60 countries and regions worldwide, and the deployment of smart police robots in 22 cities nationwide. The wheeled dual-arm robot independently developed by the Jianghuai Laboratory has been deployed in the Heli Forklift production workshop, Zero-Square robot shops have opened simultaneously at locations such as Hefei Lei Street and Hechai 1972, with single-store daily order peaks exceeding one thousand, and pilot districts such as the Yaohai Robot Application Demonstration Street and the Wuhu Jiujiang District Future Community have also been completed. Scenario-driven development is moving robots from laboratories to production lines, commercial streets, and urban public spaces.
Vehicle-machine coordination is the province's most distinctive comparative advantage. "In recent years, the province has attached great importance to the development of the intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry and has actively promoted the integrated development of automobiles with robotics and embodied intelligence, achieving remarkable results," said Ge Rui, Deputy Director of the Provincial Development and Reform Commission. As a major automobile province, Anhui has 7 complete vehicle enterprises including Chery, NIO, and JAC, as well as a relatively complete component supporting system. Robotics and embodied intelligence technologies have been deeply embedded in the entire automotive industry chain. NIO's F2 factory has been selected as a global lighthouse factory, and JAC's Zunjie Super Factory is equipped with more than 1,800 intelligent robots. Chery's Moja robot products are exported to more than 30 countries and regions, and the first full-size humanoid robot under Zhongding has officially rolled off the production line. Relying on high-level innovation platforms such as the Provincial Open Automotive Ecosystem Laboratory, the Provincial Future Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Innovation Center, and the New Energy and Intelligent Connected Vehicle Anhui Provincial Laboratory, the province has more than 400 intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry technology innovation platforms, a considerable portion of which focus on research and development directions such as robotics and embodied intelligence. According to comprehensive professional institution judgments, the integrated development of automobiles and robotics will present three major trends: convergence of technical architectures, three-dimensional application scenarios, and ecosystem-based industrial competition. It is expected that by 2030, the comprehensive reuse rate of underlying technologies such as perception, computing, and decision-making between automobiles and robots will exceed 80%. "Future competition will no longer be competition among individual automakers, but competition among 'complete vehicle + AI + robot' ecosystem systems," Ge Rui said.
Innovation breakthroughs and enterprise cultivation are the internal driving forces for the industry's continued growth. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan," the Provincial Department of Science and Technology has organized and implemented a batch of technology breakthrough projects in the robotics field, investing nearly 500 million yuan in fiscal funds.
Reviewed by Yang Jingjing. Edited by Hu Peilin. Proofread by Li Li.