This China Firm Runs a School Teaching Robots Human Tasks

Bloomberg's David Ingles and Yvonne Man discuss China's dominance in humanoid robotics with Kenneth Ren of RealMan Robotics. Ren details the company's Beijing robot training school, where teleoperation devices collect human-demonstration data to train robots for factory, warehouse, and service tasks. He argues robots will collaborate with rather than replace human workers, with near-term use in repetitive and night-shift jobs. The main market implication is a positive setup for China humanoid robotics and robot training data infrastructure. - China's humanoid robot makers accounted for more than 97% of global shipments in the first half of the year. - A Shanghai-based firm was cited as the top vendor with 44% of global humanoid robot shipments. - China installed around 300,000 robots in 2024 versus about 38,000 in the U.S. - Kenneth Ren says robots will not replace humans but will collaborate in standardized and dangerous tasks. - RealMan Robotics runs a Beijing data training center with about 150 robots across scenarios. - Teleoperation devices are used to collect detailed data for robot training. - Next-generation training platforms are expected to focus on factory, warehouse, and service environments. - Near-term robots may handle repetitive night-shift and moving-box tasks within one to two years.