The market continues to expand, accelerating the large-scale application of embodied intelligence

Securities Daily reporter Kou Jiali

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology approved and released the “YD/T 6770—2026 Artificial Intelligence Key Foundational Technologies Embodied Intelligence Benchmarking Test Methods,” which will be officially implemented on June 1.

It is understood that this is the first industry standard in the field of embodied intelligence. It establishes a unified benchmarking test framework for the field, and standardizes the environment setup, task-benchmark construction, testing process, and metric calculation methods for carrying out embodied intelligence benchmarking tests in both simulated and real environments. The standard is currently also being advanced in parallel for the establishment of international standards.

Zhang Xiaorong, director of the Institute for Deep Science and Technology Research, said in an interview with Securities Daily reporter that developing industry standards for embodied intelligence will help better guide the direction of technological iteration, reduce ineffective investment of R&D resources, optimize resource allocation, further support embodied intelligence as it moves from the laboratory into real-world scenarios, and promote the landing of technological achievements in industrial applications.

Embodied intelligence refers to intelligent systems in which agents achieve integrated sensing, cognition, decision-making, and action through real-time interaction between physical entities and the environment, covering forms such as intelligent robots, autonomous driving vehicles, and drones.

At present, China’s embodied intelligence industry is in its early stage of development, with the market scale growing rapidly. Data disclosed by the China Center for Information Industry Development shows that in 2025, the market size of China’s embodied intelligence was approximately 915 billion yuan, up 20.4% year on year. The China Center for Information Industry Development analyst predicts that in 2026, China’s embodied intelligence market size will reach 1,090.4 billion yuan.

Guo Tao, deputy director of the China E-Commerce Expert Service Center, said in an interview with Securities Daily reporter that China’s embodied intelligence industry has multiple development advantages: on the technology front, algorithm acceleration and iterative innovation are ongoing, and technologies such as AI large models and autonomous decision-making and action are maturing continuously, with standout performance in patent applications; on the industry front, the supply-chain integration service capability is strong—key components such as frameless torque motors, reducers, and dexterous hands achieve large-scale production, and some key components have already achieved domestic substitution; in terms of investment and financing, leading companies are highly favored by capital, and large-scale financing rounds occur frequently.

Data from IT Juzi shows that in this year’s first quarter, there were 132 investment and financing events in the embodied intelligence sector, totaling 31.861 billion yuan; for all of 2025, there were 334 investment and financing events in the embodied intelligence sector, totaling 36.475 billion yuan.

Dong Qingma, deputy director of the China Financial Research Institute at Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, said in an interview with Securities Daily reporter that capital from all quarters has poured into the embodied intelligence sector at a large scale, providing strong support for companies to increase R&D investment. This is conducive to the innovation-driven development of embodied intelligence products and application scenarios, and also beneficial for building an end-to-end industrial ecosystem covering the entire chain of “data—technology—products—applications.”

As an important carrier of AI technologies, embodied intelligence will be widely applied in industries such as manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and elder care in the future, driving more technological achievements to be transformed into real productive forces. At the same time, it is also necessary to note that China’s embodied intelligence industry still has some shortcomings—for example, a higher external dependency for high-precision sensors and core algorithms, as well as large data gaps.

Relevant policies provide support for the development of the embodied intelligence industry. For example, on March 30, multiple departments including the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology jointly released the “Intelligent Transportation and Shipping 2030 Action Plan,” which requires “strengthening research on embodied intelligence physical interaction in high-risk operation scenarios, and improving the usability and reliability of intelligent systems.”

In places such as Guangzhou, Xiamen, and Haikou, policy measures related to embodied intelligence have been released recently. For example, on March 25, Xiamen’s Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology publicly released the “Several Measures of Xiamen to Promote the Development of the Embodied Intelligence Industry,” proposing to “support companies in carrying out application-scenario development, carry out demonstration applications of embodied intelligence across the whole society, and set rewards for a single scenario of no more than 1 million yuan.”

In Zhang Xiaorong’s view, with a series of policy measures providing support, the scale-up of embodied intelligence applications and the pace of commercialization are expected to accelerate. Going forward, all parties should pool their strengths to tackle frontier technological breakthroughs, establish simulation platforms and data collection and training centers, build an independently controllable technology system, and improve the industrial standards system.