题图。

At a new 12,000 square metre facility in wuhan, young Chinese graduates spend their days piloting humanoid robots serving steamed buns, wiping down tables and folding laundry.

在武汉一处新建的1.2万平方米设施内,中国年轻毕业生们整天操控人形机器人,让它们端包子、擦桌子、叠衣服等。

Every movement the machines make inside the Rmb200mn ($29mn) laboratory’s mock kitchens and bedrooms is tracked and recorded by cameras and sensors.

这个造价2亿元人民币(2900万美元)的实验室里,机器人在模拟厨房和卧室中的每个动作都被摄像头与传感器追踪并记录。

The Hubei Humanoid Robot Innovation Center is one of dozens of state-funded robot training farms that have popped up across China to build a vast pool of robot-specific training data.

湖北省人形机器人创新中心是中国各地涌现的数十个国家资助的机器人训练农场之一,这些农场旨在构建海量机器人专用训练数据池。

“We’re like teachers and the robots are our students,” said Zhang Jia, a 21-year-old programme manager at the site. “When you teach a human, they get it after a few repetitions. But teaching a robot is different, you have to repeat actions hundreds, thousands, even tens of thousands of times.”

“我们如同教师,机器人则是我们的学生。”21岁的项目经理张佳表示,“教导人类时,重复数次便能掌握。但训练机器人就完全不一样了,每个动作需要重复数百、数千甚至数万次。”

Officials hope that amassing such data will help the country’s nascent humanoid robotics industry overcome key challenges facing AI as it moves beyond software into the physical world.

官员们希望,大规模积累此类数据将有助于中国新兴的人形机器人产业克服人工智能从软件领域迈向物理世界过程中面临的关键挑战。



插图:年轻毕业生在武汉一家培训实验室里教机器人拣货。

The push is part of President * **’s drive to make China the world’s foremost science and technology superpower. Last week, Bei*g identified “embodied intelligence” as one of six future industries to foster in its 2026-30 five-year plan, calling for the development of training centres, AI models and hardware to accelerate the rollout of humanoid robots.

这一举措是***推动中国成为世界顶尖科技强国战略的组成部分。上周,中国方面将“具身智能”列为2026-2030年五年规划中重点培育的六大未来产业之一,呼吁发展训练中心、人工智能模型及硬件,以加速人形机器人的部署和应用。

Experts say a shortage of robot-specific training data remains a major obstacle to translating recent advances in AI into real-world robotics. The large language models that underpin ChatGPT and DeepSeek have been fed vast amounts of text scraped from the internet. Robot data collection is still in its infancy.

专家指出,机器人专用训练数据的短缺,仍是把人工智能的最新进展应用到现实机器人中的主要障碍。支撑ChatGPT和DeepSeek的大型语言模型,其训练数据来自从互联网抓取的海量文本。而机器人数据的收集仍处于起步阶段。

Companies in China and the US are using a range of methods to gather training data, including real-world deployments, simulation and using AI-generated data.

中美两国的企业正采用多种方法收集训练数据,包括真实场景部署、模拟仿真以及利用人工智能生成的数据。

Tesla has explored using human demonstration videos to help train its Optimus robot, while Silicon Valley start-up 1X Technologies wants to put robots in households that will in part be remotely piloted by humans as they learn.

特斯拉已探索利用人类演示视频来帮助训练其Optimus机器人,而硅谷初创公司1X Technologies则计划将机器人部署到家庭中,让其在学习过程中部分由人类进行远程操控。

Beijing’s multiyear plan for the humanoid industry includes scaling robot training and data collection. Local governments from the rich coastal city of Hangzhou to the small interior city of Mianyang are pouring in money for new training farms. Hubei province, which holds the wuhan lab, has unveiled a Rmb10bn state fund for humanoids.

北京对人形机器人产业制定的多年规划包括扩大机器人训练和数据采集规模。从富裕的沿海城市杭州到内陆小城绵阳,各地政府都在为新训练农场投入资金。设有武汉实验室的湖北省已推出一项规模达100亿元的人形机器人产业基金。

“China is becoming smarter in how it supports emerging industries facing bottlenecks and that’s what they are doing with the data collection centres,” said Jay Huang, head of Asia industrial technologies at Bernstein research group.

伯恩斯坦研究集团亚洲工业科技主管黄杰表示:“中国在支持面临发展瓶颈的新兴产业方面正变得更加明智,这正是他们建设数据采集中心的意义所在。”

“Government support means the data is shared, benefiting everyone. It pushes everyone to work in the same direction,” he said.

他指出:“政府支持意味着数据实现共享,使各方受益。这推动所有人朝着同一方向努力。”

In wuhan, Zhang helps oversee 70 young instructors who work eight-hour shifts training their 46 robots. They use remote controls or sensor-equipped handheld devices to operate the machines, repeating the same movements over and over.

在武汉,张佳协助管理着70名年轻训练师,他们以八小时轮班制培训46台机器人。训练师们使用遥控器或配备传感器的手持设备操作机器,一遍又一遍地重复相同的动作。



插图:一位训练师正在教机器人如何清洁。

Nearby, rows of staffers review the video output, labelling every few seconds of footage with annotations such as “pivot left” or “extending arm”. The site produces about 100 hours of usable data a day, according to Zhang.

附近区域内,成排的工作人员正在检视视频画面,每隔数秒就对影像资料标注“向左转动”或“伸展手臂”等标签。据张佳介绍,该农场每天可生成约100小时的有效数据。

“We collect and organise the data, then upload it to our platform, where we label and process it,” he said. “We’re still in an exploratory phase.”

“我们收集并整理数据,然后上传至平台进行标注和处理,”他表示,“目前仍处于探索阶段。”

The idea is that the succession of sensor readings and videos that capture the positions, velocities and torques of the robot parts as they move can be fed into AI models for robots — typically “vision language action” models, in industry parlance.

其核心理念在于,通过一连串传感器读数和视频数据——这些数据捕捉了机器人部件运动时的位置、速度与扭矩——能够输入至机器人专用的人工智能模型,即业内所称的‘视觉-语言-行动’模型。

The process is intended to help recreate the breakthroughs seen with large language models in robotics. That could lead to machines learning more generalised skills, such as picking up a bottle of water without being explicitly programmed to do it.

这一流程希望在机器人领域复制大型语言模型那样的突破。未来或将使机器能够学习更通用的技能,例如无需专门编程即可自主完成‘拿起一瓶水’这类动作。



插图:机器在模拟厨房和卧室内的每一个动作都会被摄像头和传感器追踪和记录。

“Obtaining data at scale is not easy,” said Zhao xiang, a co-founder of Motphys, a start-up that has built an embodied intelligence simulation platform.

“大规模获取数据并非易事,”机器人初创企业Motphys联合创始人赵翔表示。该公司已构建了一个具身智能仿真平台。

Young engineers in their state-backed wuhan lab wear virtual reality headsets to train robots, allowing Motphys to collect data more efficiently and at a lower cost. “Simulation is essential,” Zhao explains. “An intelligence breakthrough may require hundreds of millions or even billions of hours of data.”

在这家获得政府支持的武汉实验室里,年轻工程师们佩戴虚拟现实头盔训练机器人,使Motphys公司能够以更低成本、更高效率采集数据。“仿真技术至关重要,”赵翔解释道,“一次智能突破可能需要数亿甚至数十亿小时的数据支撑。”

Experts said a more fundamental challenge loomed over China’s ambitions: for now, data collected from one robot cannot easily be used to power another with different hardware. Because the hardware is rapidly evolving, data collected now may not work as well for next year’s model.

专家指出,中国机器人产业面临一项更为根本的挑战:目前从一台机器人采集的数据难以直接应用于其他硬件结构不同的机器人。由于硬件技术快速迭代,当前收集的数据可能无法适配明年推出的新型号。

Bernstein’s Huang said data transferability remained an area of active research with progress expected. Google DeepMind’s robotics AI models, for example, have shown early promise in transferring certain skills across hardware platforms.

伯恩斯坦分析师黄杰表示,数据可迁移性仍是业界重点攻关领域,预计将取得进展。例如谷歌DeepMind的机器人人工智能模型已初步展现出在不同硬件平台间迁移特定技能的潜力。

China’s approach was laid out in a Ministry of Industry and Information Technology strategy document for the development of the humanoid robotics industry to the end of 2027.

中国的发展方针已体现在工业和信息化部印发的《人形机器人创新发展指导意见》中,该指导意见的有效期截至2027年底。

The plan identifies large-scale training databases and high-quality multimodal data as central to building the “brain” of humanoid robots. Local governments have rushed to support the programme, both to create jobs and seed future industries in their areas.

该文件将大规模训练数据库与高质量多模态数据确定为人形机器人“大脑”构建的核心要素。各地政府正积极支持这项计划,既为创造就业岗位,也为在本地区培育未来产业。


But even leading robotics researchers and the engineers carrying out the data drive said it remained unclear if it would yield the desired technological gains.

但即便是引领机器人研究的学者及参与这一数据收集行动的工程师也坦言,目前尚不确定这项数据工程能否产生预期的技术突破。

There is one tangible benefit: robot purchases by data collection centres have helped sustain China’s humanoid robot manufacturers while real-world demand for their hardware is still emerging.

但至少有一个明显好处:在硬件产品的实际市场需求尚未完全形成之际,数据采集中心对机器人的采购,为中国的人形机器人制造商提供了维持运营的支持。

The wuhan centre bought dozens of robots from Shanghai-based AgiBot at Rmb350,000 a piece. Bernstein analysts estimate sales for data collection made up about one-fifth of China’s more than 20,000 humanoid robot shipments last year.

武汉中心以每台35万元人民币的价格,从上海智元公司采购了数十台机器人。伯恩斯坦分析师估计,去年中国超过2万台的人形机器人出货量中,约有五分之一是用于数据采集。

At one data collection centre the FT visited, a dozen humanlike robots hung motionless on one side of a grand lobby.

在英国《金融时报》走访的一家数据采集中心,宏伟的大厅一侧十几台人形机器人被悬挂在那里,一动不动。

A staff member, who asked not to be named, explained that these robots were not being used for collecting training data. “These are the ones that perform when officials come to visit.”

一位不愿具名的员工解释说,这些机器人并非用于采集训练数据。“这些是供领导参观时进行演示用的。”