At the DUDUONE Robot 6S Store in Baohe District, Hefei, staff members perform maintenance on robots. (File photo) Photo by Cheng Zhao. By 2030, industrial robot output will rank among the top in the nation, humanoid robot output will enter the nation's first tier, and robot output in more than 10 specialized segments including spraying, explosion-proof applications, warehousing and logistics, and photovoltaic cleaning will lead domestically. By 2035, a robotics industry cluster with significant national influence will be established. On September 28, the Provincial Government Information Office held a press conference, inviting responsible officials from the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology, the Provincial Department of Finance, the Provincial Development and Reform Commission, and the Provincial Department of Science and Technology to interpret the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Robotics Industry" (hereinafter referred to as the "Implementation Opinions") recently issued by the General Office of the Provincial Government.

Reporters learned from the press conference that the province will seize the "15th Five-Year Plan" strategic opportunity to build robotics and embodied intelligence into emerging pillar industries, fully capturing the "peaks" of advantageous specialized segments and advancing toward a full-industry-chain and full-ecosystem "plateau." By 2030, industrial robot output will rank among the top in the nation, humanoid robot output will enter the nation's first tier, and robot output in more than 10 specialized segments including spraying, explosion-proof applications, warehousing and logistics, and photovoltaic cleaning will lead domestically. By 2035, a robotics industry cluster with significant national influence will be established.

Putting the Robotics Industry "at the Top"

Why does the province place such emphasis on the robotics industry? First and foremost, it stems from the imperative requirements of national strategy. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the national "15th Five-Year Plan" outline both explicitly proposed accelerating the development of strategic emerging industries such as robotics and promoting embodied intelligence as a new growth point for the economy. This year, the State Council approved intelligent robotics as one of the six major emerging pillar industries to be cultivated during the "15th Five-Year Plan," and relevant national ministries and commissions have intensively issued specialized support policies. The accelerated formation of the national-level policy system means that the robotics industry has shifted from an "optional item" to a "mandatory question." The province's issuance of the "Implementation Opinions" at this time is precisely a proactive undertaking and concrete implementation of the national strategic deployment.

"This is a golden track with broad market prospects." said Shi Li, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology. As the best carrier for artificial intelligence, robotics and embodied intelligence possess extremely strong technology spillover and industrial linkage effects, and are rapidly becoming the new generation of intelligent terminals after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles. Relevant institutions predict that China's robotics industry will enter an explosive growth phase during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, with an average annual compound growth rate exceeding 20%. Research from the Development Research Center of the State Council indicates that the market size of China's embodied intelligence industry is expected to exceed one trillion yuan by 2035. "Facing such a super new blue ocean in an explosive phase, Anhui cannot be absent and must seize the strategic opportunity," Shi Li said.

More importantly, the province possesses a realistic foundation for developing the robotics industry. Currently, the province has formed an industrial layout with Hefei and Wuhu as dual cores leading the way and other cities providing multi-point support, establishing a full-chain transformation channel from basic research to pilot verification to industrialization, and accumulating a solid foundation in complete machine manufacturing and scenario applications. Shi Li stated that in terms of innovation sourcing, the province possesses a number of high-level innovation platforms including the University of Science and Technology of China and the Jianghuai Center, and the Qizhi Industrial Robot General Technology Foundation project has received high recognition from relevant parties. In terms of industrial scale, the province's robotics industry scale and comprehensive competitiveness rank in the nation's first echelon, with industrial robot output breaking through the threshold of 5,000 units per month on average, service robot output growing by 84.1% year-on-year from January to August this year, and 31 prototype models developed in the humanoid robot field. In terms of cross-sector integration, the province ranks first nationally in both automobile output and new energy vehicle output, and technologies such as automotive three-electric systems, precision manufacturing, sensors, and model algorithms can be directly transferred and applied to robotics.

"It can be said that robotics and embodied intelligence are the industries where Anhui has the best conditions and the most confidence to achieve breakthroughs first. Putting robotics 'at the top' is not following the trend, but a strategic choice based on comparative advantages," Shi Li said.

Version 2.0 of the Robotics Industry Policy

Last year, the General Office of the Provincial Government already issued and implemented the "Anhui Province Intelligent Robotics Industry Development Action Plan." This time, the "Implementation Opinions" build on the existing foundation with "forward-looking layout and upgraded approaches," and is also referred to as Version 2.0 of Anhui's robotics industry policy. The overall framework of the "Implementation Opinions" can be summarized as "one target system, seven key tasks, and four-fold work guarantees," reflecting the organic unity of forward-looking thinking, catch-up thinking, and systematic thinking.

In addition to a clear timetable and roadmap, the seven key tasks proposed around the development goals in the "Implementation Opinions" are: optimizing industrial development layout, strengthening industrial research and planning, highlighting industrial development priorities, promoting spatially differentiated layout, deepening vehicle-machine coordinated development, and increasing layout efforts in complete machines, core components, intelligent models, and aftermarket segments; strengthening industrial technological innovation, building an innovation platform system, reinforcing key technology breakthroughs, supporting the development of "hit" products, and making robotics a key support direction for provincial science and technology tackling plans and industry chain collaborative innovation policies; collaboratively promoting "dual recruitment and dual introduction," targeting the recruitment of outstanding complete machine enterprises, key component enterprises, and ecosystem partners from around the world and across the nation, and supporting qualified cities in issuing global top-tier talent "recruitment orders"; cultivating quality enterprises in echelons, nurturing platform-based enterprises with ecosystem leadership, supporting the growth of technology-based enterprises and supporting enterprises, and supporting enterprise mergers and acquisitions and the development of service-oriented manufacturing; strengthening scenario application support, opening up application scenarios, organizing scenario supply-demand matchmaking, and promoting rapid replication of mature scenarios; encouraging government agencies, enterprises, and institutions to take the lead in opening scenarios, and encouraging all cities to create typical robot scenarios and districts; increasing fiscal and financial support, upgrading and expanding fiscal support, establishing a 10-billion-yuan-scale robotics industry fund cluster, and building a fiscal-financial coordination system; and building high-level industrial cooperation platforms, forming high-level strategic advisory committees, elevating the level of industry associations, and hosting major brand events.

Among these, the fiscal-financial coordination system is particularly noteworthy. The "Implementation Opinions" propose building a "fiscal + fund + credit + guarantee + insurance" five-in-one fiscal-financial coordination system, with 500 million yuan in provincial fiscal funds coordinated annually from 2027 to 2030, focusing on key technology breakthroughs, innovation platforms, scenario promotion, and talent think tanks. It also promotes the establishment of a new provincial robotics and embodied intelligence industry investment fund, adhering to the principles of investing early, investing small, investing in hard technology, and investing long-term... "Using limited fiscal funds as a policy 'primer' to leverage more financial resources and social capital flowing into the robotics industry, achieving a '1+1>2' aggregation effect of fiscal and financial policies, and injecting sustained momentum into robotics industry development and market entity cultivation," said Zhang Feng, Deputy Director of the Provincial Department of Finance.

Replicable and Operable Implementation Pathways

The key to transforming policy blueprints into industrial reality lies in finding operable and replicable implementation pathways. From the information revealed at the press conference, the province's implementation pathways have already shown distinctive characteristics: scenario-driven, vehicle-machine coordination as an advantage, and innovation ecosystem as support.

"Scenarios are the core engine for robot technology iteration, product verification, and scaled application," said Li Xiaofan, Second-Level Inspector of the Provincial Department of Industry and Information Technology. Around the goals of "finding verification scenarios for new technologies, finding promotion scenarios for mature products, and finding suitable products for rigid-demand scenarios," the province has built a closed-loop system of scenario mining, matchmaking verification, benchmark creation, and batch promotion. Specifically, the "Anhui Province Action Plan for Deepening Robot Scenario Applications (2026-2028)" has been compiled, and the scenario "three lists and one platform" has been established, releasing scenario opportunity lists, supply capability lists, and promotion application lists, opening a robot supply-demand matchmaking zone on the "Yiqi Service Cloud" platform for targeted and precise dispatch. From January to August this year, the province newly signed 81 robotics and embodied intelligence projects with an investment of 15.1 billion yuan, and quality enterprises such as Zhuji Dynamics, Yiyou Technology, Yuanhua Intelligence, and Youliqi settled in Anhui.

At the same time, scenario matchmaking has been extended down to enterprises, focusing on specialized segments such as photovoltaic cleaning, polishing, and inspection, conducting 7 sessions of " 'Ji' Yu You Ni" production-demand matchmaking activities, reaching more than 40 cooperation agreements, promoting 5 projects to land in Anhui, facilitating a 2-million-yuan polishing robot purchase order between Xinjingjie and Changyuan Hydraulics, promoting Zhongke Shengu intelligent inspection robots to enter Hefei West Railway Station, Moja shopping guide robots to be applied in batches in more than 60 countries and regions worldwide, and smart police robots to be deployed in 22 cities across the nation. The wheeled dual-arm robot independently developed by the Jianghuai Laboratory has already been deployed in the Heli Forklift production workshop, Zero-Square Robot stores have simultaneously opened at locations including Hefei Lei Street and Hechai 1972, with single-store daily order peaks exceeding one thousand, and pilot districts such as the Yaohai Robot Application Demonstration Street and Wuhu Jiujiang District Future Community have also been completed. Scenario-driven approaches are bringing robots from laboratories to production lines, commercial streets, and urban public spaces.

Vehicle-machine coordination is the province's most distinctive comparative advantage. "In recent years, the province has attached great importance to the development of the intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry, actively promoting the integrated development of automobiles with robotics and embodied intelligence with remarkable results," said Ge Rui, Deputy Director of the Provincial Development and Reform Commission. As a major automobile-producing province, Anhui has 7 complete vehicle enterprises including Chery, NIO, and JAC, as well as a relatively complete component supporting system. Robotics and embodied intelligence technologies have been deeply embedded in the entire automobile industry chain. NIO's F2 factory was selected as a global lighthouse factory, and JAC's Zunjie Super Factory is equipped with more than 1,800 intelligent robots. Chery's Moja robot products are exported to more than 30 countries and regions, and the first full-size humanoid robot under Zhongding has officially rolled off the production line.

Relying on high-level innovation platforms such as the Provincial Open Automotive Ecosystem Laboratory, the Provincial Future Intelligent Connected New Energy Vehicle Innovation Center, and the New Energy and Intelligent Connected Vehicle Anhui Provincial Laboratory, the province's total number of intelligent connected new energy vehicle industry science and technology innovation platforms exceeds 400, with a considerable portion focusing on research and development directions such as robotics and embodied intelligence. According to comprehensive professional institution assessments, the integrated development of automobiles and robotics will present three major trends: convergence of technical architectures, three-dimensional application scenarios, and ecosystem-based industrial competition. It is estimated that by 2030, the comprehensive reuse rate of underlying technologies such as perception, computing, and decision-making between automobiles and robots will exceed 80%. "Future competition will no longer be competition between individual automakers, but competition between 'complete vehicle + AI + robotics' ecosystem systems," Ge Rui said.

Innovation breakthroughs and enterprise cultivation are the endogenous driving forces for the industry's continued growth. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan," the Provincial Department of Science and Technology has organized and implemented a batch of technology breakthrough projects in the robotics field, investing nearly 500 million yuan in fiscal funds.