At the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC 2026), held in Beijing from August 19 to 23, UBTECH presented humanoid robot products and solutions for industrial, commercial, and home-consumer settings. Its lineup included the industrial humanoid robots Cruzr Y1 and Cruzr S2, the commercial service robot Walker C1, and the ultrabionic humanoid robot U1.
Three application strategies
UBTECH described its approach as industrial robots developing practical capabilities, commercial robots emphasizing service, and home robots focusing on emotional connection. The company used immersive exhibition areas and live demonstrations to show the progression from embodied intelligence research and product development to deployment at scale.
Industrial applications formed the foundation of the demonstration. Cruzr Y1 and Cruzr S2 performed live operations covering automotive sheet-metal loading and unloading, automotive machining-part handling, tote and carton depalletizing, and small-package sorting for logistics and e-commerce. The workflows were designed for autonomous operation without human intervention, supporting long-duration, high-intensity, continuous work. UBTECH said the robots combine stable performance, dynamic fault tolerance, and long-horizon task planning for complex manufacturing, material-handling, and warehouse conditions.
For commercial services, UBTECH launched the full-size Walker C1. Its upgraded embodied-intelligence interaction capabilities are intended to make humanoid robots deployable across scenarios, reusable in function, and commercially valuable. Walker C1 can provide reception, guidance, entertainment, exhibition performances, and visitor interaction in shopping centers, exhibition venues, and other urban commercial spaces.
Walker C1 EDU gives developers hands-on access to the Thinker Cosmos development chain. In education, the newly introduced Walker C1 EDU Tutor uses the UIRO intelligent tutoring system to support autonomous teaching, problem-solving explanations from photographed questions, intelligent question answering, and multimodal classroom interaction.
In the home-consumer segment, UBTECH’s ultrabionic humanoid U1 drew large crowds at the exhibition. It uses the company’s Resonance-LM emotional foundation model to support more natural companionship. Its hardware includes a “dual-support, four-link” bionic cervical structure, a 33-axis facial tendon network, and 19 active degrees of freedom for facial movement. Millisecond-level eye tracking and a sensitive sound-source localization system help it respond to users.
U1 also includes a cross-temporal memory system and an optional proactive-care mode designed to sense users’ emotions and offer care. UBTECH said the robot can serve in emotional support, elder companionship, reception, cultural tourism exhibitions, and psychological care. The company describes U1 as the world’s first ultrabionic humanoid robot capable of mass production.
Embodied intelligence technology stack
UBTECH said embodied intelligence is central to the practical value, user experience, and industrial scope of humanoid robots. To support its three application areas, the company has built a self-developed technology stack covering foundation models, world models, and action models, alongside its own data center.
Its Thinker foundation model is designed around small parameter size, high performance, and full open source. UBTECH said Thinker achieved nine first-place results in authoritative benchmarks for embodied-intelligence brain models below 10B parameters, while its largest foundation model reaches 100B parameters. The model targets first-person scene understanding and task planning, as well as precise perception and spatial understanding for physical interaction.
Based on Thinker, UBTECH developed the Thinker-WM embodied-intelligence world model as a physical AI foundation. The company said Thinker-WM ranked first on the Libero embodied-intelligence benchmark, with strengths in spatial generalization, long-horizon tasks, and overall performance.
The Thinker-VLA model is used across UBTECH’s humanoid robot portfolio. In industrial applications, its inference efficiency increased by 176%, storage usage fell by 60%, and the GPU memory requirement for full edge-side functionality was reduced from 64GB to 32GB. In commercial and home-companion scenarios, Thinker-VLA supports dialogue, inquiry, facial expression, gaze, and memory capabilities.
Partnerships and ecosystem development
UBTECH is also building an ecosystem spanning component development, chip adaptation, complete-machine production, and application deployment. At the conference, it demonstrated a servo drive and dexterous-hand development and manufacturing collaboration with Fenglong Co., Ltd.; small-package logistics sorting with Damon Technology; and automotive sheet-metal and machining-part handling with an automotive-parts company.
During WRC 2026, UBTECH signed an agreement with Shenzhen Basic Semiconductor Co., Ltd. covering robot energy-efficiency optimization and development of low-power, long-endurance products. It also signed a provincial industry-education integration partnership agreement with Guangdong Wenhan Education Group to help train specialized talent for the embodied-intelligence sector.
UBTECH said its longer-term plan is to use humanoid robots for repetitive, dangerous, and strenuous work, then expand into household, public-service, and commercial settings. Its stated vision centers on AI intelligent terminals, a new-quality productivity platform, and an information foundation for human-machine cities.