About 2,400 years ago, during the Warring States period, the book "Liezi: Tangwen" depicted a story about "Yan Shi Creating a Human":
It is said that when King Mu of Zhou was on a western inspection tour, Yan Shi presented him with an automaton made of leather, wood, and other materials, which looked extremely similar to a real person and could sing melodiously and dance gracefully.
This story has been regarded by later generations as one of the earliest imaginations of robots. Interestingly, for over two millennia, people's imagination of robots has remained at the level of Yan Shi's creation: capable of singing and dancing.
But is the role of robots limited to this?
On September 24, Chimelong Spaceship in Hengqin, the world's first large-scale Embodied AI theme park, officially opened, with over 300 Agibot robots collectively starting their shifts. If Yan Shi were here, he would probably say, "This prosperous era is exactly as you wished."
Xiao Lei also visited the site. Originally, I thought the robots would be the same as before, just singing and dancing mascots. But after spending a day exploring, I realized: this time is a bit different.
Scale, Operations, Environment, and Roles: Four "Differences"
Have you ever seen a robot descending from the sky? At the opening ceremony, Agibot arranged such a "wow" performance: a drone carried a red robot from the sky, landing steadily on the ground, and joining other robots in the world's largest opening dance.
But this is not the main point. Only upon truly entering the park did I discover the real meaning of the "deployment phase" that Agibot has been emphasizing.
I summarize what I saw and heard into four "differences".
First is the "difference" in scale. As soon as you enter the park, you can see a guide robot wearing a finless porpoise hat waiting for you. Its name is Kaka. Its capabilities are based on scene maps and natural language understanding, providing tourists with services such as destination inquiry, route planning, and commentary.
Of course, this is just the first robot you will see. There are over 300 robots in total across the park, covering various scenarios including cultural and entertainment commercial performances, science popularization and study tours, guide and shopping assistance, service retail, intelligent companion tours, hotels, and sports competitions. More than 100 spots are scattered throughout the park, and you will encounter a robot waiting for you every few steps.
Moreover, it is said that these are the same batch of robots that won gold at the Robot World Games previously. But obviously, the role of the robots here is also different. If other scenarios are still performative, then at Chimelong, the robots are truly "on duty" and working.
Although mentioning "on duty" makes people think of the "vibe of being at work", the good thing is that the robots here have a very strong human touch. I encountered a robot on site that, when running, said it was about to start "Great-grandma running." Seeing the confused looks of bystanders, it explained by itself that its "colleagues" all said it ran like its great-grandma. It also occasionally blurted out some golden quotes, giving people the feeling that it was played by a human, but it was indeed a robot.
Behind this is Agibot's self-developed WITA large model, which enables the robot to perceive the environment, understand intentions, and maintain continuity in conversations, making it feel unlike talking to a machine. For example, when tourists approach, the robot perceives them and directly greets them, inviting you to play together, and everything is very natural.
Second is the "difference" in operational mode. Unlike previous pop-up commercial performance robots, this time it is oriented towards the routine operation of the park, with shift schedules and workstations. They clock in when the park opens and clock out when it closes, being present from Monday to Sunday. Of course, this is not easy. Besides Agibot's own technical support, ensuring a smooth network is also a top priority.
To this end, Agibot joined hands with Chimelong and China Mobile to build a 5G-A private network plus an edge computing foundation. In the park with complex architecture and huge passenger flow, hundreds of robots need to access simultaneously and collaborate in real time. This relies on the network exclusively allocated for the robots. The tourist network and robot operations are isolated from each other. Even during peak hours, the robots will not experience network instability.
Finally, the "difference" in environmental complexity. Exhibition booths are controlled environments, while the park is a completely open environment. Tens of thousands of tourists do not follow a script every day, several people talk to the robot at the same time, children suddenly rush over and wave, and so on. There are too many uncontrollable factors.
Xiao Lei also walked side by side with a guide robot on site for a while. It could avoid the crowd while chatting with the surrounding audience. During the time, it was interrupted by simultaneous questions from tourists, but it could always pick up the conversation. In the past, if a demonstration went wrong, people would just laugh it off. Now that robots face tourists every day, relying on remote control as a fallback is unrealistic. If every robot needs a human operator, it would be putting the cart before the horse. Therefore, the system has to handle it on its own, which also reflects Agibot's technical strength.
The above is what I saw and heard on site. Without exaggeration, the coordination between Agibot and Chimelong far exceeded expectations. The integration of robots and the park has no sense of incongruity at all; instead, it makes people feel that the robots were always meant to be here.
In the Era of Human-Machine Coexistence, the Yardstick for Embodied AI Has Changed
Analyzing from an industry perspective, it can be found that the cooperation between Chimelong and Agibot is more like a mutually beneficial partnership.
Xiong Yan, Partner, Co-President, President of the Central R&D Department, and President of the Interactive Business System at Agibot, stated in an interview with media including Lei Technology: the two parties have a ten-year long-term strategic cooperation. On the other hand, it is said that the expected deployment scale for the entire Chimelong system in the future is thousands of units. The over 300 units at Spaceship Park are just the first phase.
Image source: Lei Technology photography
In other words, this is not just a gimmick to attract tourists. Chimelong now receives tens of millions of visitors every year, especially with the rapid growth of overseas users. The languages are diverse, and it is simply impossible to fully staff interpreters for minor languages. A single robot naturally supports dozens of languages. For a theme park, introducing robots is no longer just about attracting tourists; it is something that can truly reduce costs and increase efficiency.
And if you want to find a company in the Embodied AI industry that has both stable mass production and large-scale delivery capabilities, there is actually only one option, and that is Agibot.
Conversely, Agibot needs scenarios that can continuously test and improve robot capabilities, and Chimelong happens to be exactly that. Every interaction of the robots here is a real test of their capabilities. As the saying goes, data is the most valuable asset. Robots can iterate here. Once they can handle the complex scenario of Chimelong, the entire cultural tourism market in the future will be a piece of cake.
Speaking of which, let me share with you Xiao Lei's biggest feeling from this trip: Looking back years later, this cooperation between Agibot and Chimelong might just be the watershed of a new era, and this new era, Xiao Lei judges, is the era of human-machine coexistence.
Over the past few years, the industry has basically been challenging the limits of robots, whether it is backflips, parkour, dancing, etc. Essentially, they are all answering the question of "can it be done". The industry sees big news every now and then, so much so that Wang Chuang, Partner, Senior Vice President, and President of the General Business Department at Agibot, stated that he is shocked by the evolution of robots every few months. But after all, challenging limits is only the first step.
The second step is mass production. Mass production capability is the prerequisite for Embodied AI to step out of the laboratory and land in the industry. Currently, Agibot has achieved the production of 20,000 robots. Among them, the 15,000th robot has been delivered to the Longcheer production line, mainly serving industrial manufacturing scenarios and providing labor productivity; while the 20,000th robot, Expedition A3 Ultra, has been delivered to Chimelong Group, providing service productivity.
In other words, in the two dimensions of labor productivity and service productivity, Agibot has verified the industrial path of 10,000-unit-level mass production plus normalized deployment. It works and is replicable.
The XYZ curve of the Embodied AI industry previously proposed by Agibot is actually also describing similar changes. The X curve first solves the problem of "embodiment", enabling robots to move like humans. After entering the Y curve, the core begins to shift to intelligence breakthroughs, allowing robots not only to move but also to work like humans, thereby truly becoming productivity. Further on, as large-scale deployment brings more data, there is an opportunity to enter the stage of intelligence emergence, making Embodied AI no longer just the "future".
In summary, these 300 robots at Chimelong are just the first answer sheet. The next leg of the "deployment phase" is moving from one park to more scenarios. After cultural tourism, there is a broader physical world waiting for robots to take their posts.
Final Thoughts
Finally, let's talk about something from the heart. In previous summaries, as a tech media, we always summarize things related to business, finance, trends, and other relatively "adult world" aspects.
But at Chimelong, this is a place that can turn everyone back into a youth. So I want to return to the mindset of a child and share my thoughts on this trip with you.
As a post-90s generation who grew up in Guangdong, Chimelong is an indelible memory for our generation. In my impression, Agibot is not the first robot to appear in the Chimelong park. I forget which year it was, but there were also robots in Chimelong. It's just that the robots back then were not on duty, let alone performing; they were more like mascots that could only be admired from a distance.
But even so, it still brought a considerable shock to me back then. No boy can resist robots, and I am the same even now. It's just that the future back then was still far away from us. The so-called robots standing there back then had a distance between them and me, as well as an entire era that had not yet arrived.
Now I am standing in Chimelong again, with over 300 Agibot robots right beside me. They are welcoming guests, guiding the way, and interacting, to the point that I was in a daze for a moment. I don't know what I would have felt if the me from back then had seen this scene.
The "future" that was still distant between us back then has been truly brought into Chimelong and into our daily lives by Agibot today. In the future, there will only be more similar experiences. Agibot will have its 50,000th unit, 100,000th unit in mass production. In all walks of life, various scenarios, and various parks, there will be robots in the future. An era of human-machine coexistence is being ushered in by Agibot and Chimelong.
And the most exciting thing is that this is just the beginning, and we will eventually take it for granted.
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