(Yicai) Jan. 22 -- China's first humanoid robot training base started operations in Shanghai yesterday. The hub will train robots from different sectors to perform a variety of tasks, and the data generated will be fed back to developers to further optimize robots' intelligence level.

Built by the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, the training hub will start off with space for 100 robots, Yicai learned at the opening ceremony. They will be trained in more than 10 typical application scenarios to help build Shanghai into a humanoid robot industrial high ground.

Over 10 companies and research institutions such as Fourier Intelligence and Agibot Innovation Technology penned agreements with the innovation center at the opening ceremony to join forces on robot training, data collection and the optimization of the training base’s operations.

The training base is essentially a factory that produces data, Jiang Lei, chief scientist of the innovation center, told Yicai. This data will be made available in the future to companies that develop embodied AI models to help accelerate the industry’s development.

Embodied AI is a type of AI that combines technologies to enable physical entities such as robots and smart cars to perceive, learn and interact with their environment. It is seen as the next step in AI and is expected to greatly expand the boundaries of utilization and robot capabilities.

"We found that training with homogeneous data creates an AI illusion, so we have built a training base to gather leading robotic companies together to enrich data sources," Jiang added.

The innovation center was established in Shanghai in May last year and is dedicated to building an open-source co-creation platform for humanoid robot developers. The center has already launched its first humanoid robot "Healthy Loong" based on open source technology, and has established an open-source community for humanoid robots.

With the rapid development of AI technology, humanoid robots will usher in a golden period of industrial development. It is expected that by 2030, the global humanoid robot market will exceed USD20 billion, of which the Chinese market will account for a quarter, according to the Gaogong Industry Institute.

Editors: Dou Shicong, Kim Taylor