Industry News

SHENZHEN, April 19 (Xinhua) -- When customers book a house-cleaning service via an online service platform in south China's Shenzhen, they are greeted by a dual team: a professional cleaner and a robot. The cleaner handles complex and judgment-driven work, while the robot performs structured tasks such as wiping tables, picking up debris, tying up garbage bags, and even assisting the cleaner in folding bedsheets.

The newly-emerged home-cleaning model has drawn attention from the overseas tech community and sparked discussions on social media.

The robots are developed by X Square Robot, an embodied intelligence company based in Shenzhen, which has teamed up with household service platform 58.com to pilot the home-cleaning robot service.

"The future of home cleaning just landed in Shenzhen and it is walking right into your living room," said Robohub, an X account tracking robotics trends globally.

"It's happening: Humanoid Robots are officially joining house cleaning crews in real homes," CyberRobo posted, emphasizing that robots are not replacing human cleaners. "It's true teamwork."

Chris Paxton, a researcher specializing in robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), endorses this collaborative human-robot business model, noting that it "allows you to scale from 70 percent to 90 percent to 99 percent autonomy naturally."

Yang Qian, chief operating officer of X Square Robot, said that unlike conventional robots that depend on scripts or remote control, X Square Robot's end-to-end model allows robots to understand tasks, plan multistep actions and execute them autonomously.

"The service industry has extremely high complexity and non-standard characteristics, and the home environment is regarded as the ultimate benchmark for evaluating general robots," Yang said, naming the reason for robots entering the domestic service sector.

"Real-world experience from the pilot program will be valuable in helping the Al improve and learn to perform more tasks," X account The Humanoid Hub noted.

The home-cleaning robot service comes amid a national push to develop embodied AI and humanoid robotics, and Shenzhen has emerged as a premier testing ground for next-generation robotics and AI applications.

The Robot Valley of Shenzhen, where the X Square Robot office is located, is home to numerous enterprises along the industrial chain. Many of these companies have their products exported overseas.

Pudu Robotics, which has won several international design awards including the German Red Dot Design Award, now serves clients in more than 80 countries and regions. In Poland, the company's cat-shaped delivery robot has become a social media sensation.

Felix Zhang, the founder and CEO of Pudu Robotics, said the overseas market has accounted for over 80 percent of the company's total revenue for several consecutive years. Commercial cleaning robots developed by Pudu are particularly well received across Europe, North America and Asia.

In Shenzhen, beyond the Robot Valley, several other hubs are fostering robust growth in the robotics industry. Qianhai is developing the Embodied Intelligence Bay and forging collaborations with leading-edge embodied intelligence enterprises to advance joint innovation and research initiatives.

Manifold Tech, which focuses on intelligent spatial perception and reconstruction technology, was founded in Qianhai. Its products not only power the acrobatic Kung Fu robots featured on China's Spring Festival gala stage, but are also exported to markets such as Europe, Japan and the United States.

Data from relevant government agencies in Shenzhen and industry associations show that the city has gathered over 2,600 AI enterprises and more than 70,000 enterprises across the robotics industry chain. In 2025, the added value of Shenzhen's AI and robotics industrial clusters registered double-digit growth.

Robots are increasingly integrated into the everyday lives of Shenzhen residents, drawing attention from international media.

A short video posted by The Straits Times shows "a robot is now directing traffic in the tech hub of Shenzhen."

"The robots patrol, give directions, hand out supplies, and even perform entertainment," Euronews reported in an article titled "A glimpse of future cities? China opens first robot-run volunteer station in public park," adding that robot volunteers have been deployed across Shenzhen's Qianhaishi Park.

Shenzhen's technological advances and application breakthroughs in robotics exemplify Guangdong Province's vigorous development of the industry.

"Guangdong Province has emerged as a leading hub for robotics and AI in China, offering a highly autonomous industrial ecosystem, strong large-scale manufacturing capacity, and diverse real-world application scenarios," the U.S. website Interesting Engineering commented.

"We are on the cusp of this future -- and much of it is currently driven by China," noted by an article co-authored by Eric Schmidt, former CEO and chairman of Google.