It looks exactly like a scene out of the Hollywood movie iRobot, depicting the Isacc Asimov classic sci-fi novel: a warehouse filled with gleaming white robots standing in a precise military grid, moving in unison as their controller gives them orders. (video)

That future has arrived. China unrolled the first mass deployment of robots to take the places of workers in car factories across the country. This army can work 24/7, will never go on strike, don’t want tea-breaks, and don’t even need to be recharged, as they can change their own batteries.

If the experiment is successful, the Chinese robo-factory worker could transform the face of manufacturing. China already enjoys a massive per unit cost advantage over the West – the average cost of producing a widget is roughly a third of that in the West – but robo-workers will slash labour costs and could double productivity, simply because robots can work all night.

Well ahead in robot development, these humanoid robots have been sent to industrial production lines, marking a milestone in Beijing’s push to dominate the global robotics sector. Hundreds of robots developed by UBTECH Robotics, a Shenzhen-based firm, have been deployed across major automotive plants, including those operated by leading car-makers, BYD, Geely, FAW-Volkswagen, Dongfeng, and Foxconn.

In a departure from conventional automation systems, the humanoid machines are designed to literally replace humans on production lines, rather than the robot-orientated production lines that are in wide use now. The robots are designed for flexible factory work and require minimal human supervision. According to UBTECH, as the robots are capable of autonomously swapping their own batteries, the production lines can operate continuously.

“This is the first real industrial use of humanoid robots at scale,” the company said, emphasising the shift from experimental robotics to fully integrated deployment. Unlike the traditional robotic arms, or fixed-position machinery, humanoid robots can adapt to a variety of tasks and physical layouts, offering manufacturers greater flexibility and cost efficiency over time. Currently, lines of fixed-position machinery have to be reengineered to cope with any modification to design or the introduction of a new model. However, the robo-work force can just be taught to deal with any changes to the production line or the introduction of new components or parts cheaply and quickly, like any human worker.

The move comes as Beijing accelerates its broader industrial strategy to lead in advanced manufacturing, a key pillar of the “Made in China 2025” initiative. As bne IntelliNews reported, China now produces more industrial robots than the rest of the world combined, with domestic players rapidly gaining ground in both hardware and AI-driven control systems.

China is moving beyond being just the largest market for robots — it is becoming the core of global robot production. Chinese firms accounted for over 60% of global robot output in 2024, driven by subsidies, procurement programmes, and access to vast domestic datasets for training machine learning models.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, China aims to achieve “breakthrough use of humanoid robots in key sectors” by 2027.

UBTECH’s humanoids represent the cutting edge of this trend. Initially known for educational and consumer robots, the company has shifted aggressively toward industrial applications in recent years. Its robots feature vision recognition, mobility in three-dimensional space, and multi-tool manipulation, making them suitable for tasks traditionally reserved for human workers.

As bne IntelliNews reported, China has already emerged as a global manufacturing powerhouse, but the introduction of robot workers takes things to a new level. The deployment is likely to fuel further discussion over labour displacement and the future of work in China’s manufacturing sector, particularly as demographic pressures and wage inflation accelerate the search for alternatives to manual labour.