More than 300 companies are displaying humanoid robots, industrial machines, service robots and other forms of embodied artificial intelligence at the Beijing’s 2026 World Robot Conference. The five-day event kicked off on August 19, coinciding with Unitree’s stock-market debut. The company, China’s best-known humanoid robot maker, saw shares increase nearly six-fold on opening day. The conference comes as robotics emerges as a new front in the US-China rivalry.