China has launched a massive government initiative called the «Humanoid Lifecycle Management Platform,» under which every humanoid robot manufactured in the country will be assigned a unique digital identification code. The system will allow the two-legged AI machines to be tracked from the moment they roll off the assembly line to their final disposal and recycling.
China has launched a massive government initiative called the «Humanoid Lifecycle Management Platform,» under which every humanoid robot manufactured in the country will be assigned a unique digital identification code. The system will allow the two-legged AI machines to be tracked from the moment they roll off the assembly line to their final disposal and recycling.
This is reported by the South China Morning Post. The program is overseen by the Humanoid Robotics and Embodied Intelligence Standardization Committee (HEIS) under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China. The main goal of the innovation is to establish strict industry safety standards and strengthen the regulation of robotics.
Yu Xiuming, deputy chairman of the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI), noted that the new rules will apply to absolutely all stakeholders in the supply chain: from component developers and manufacturers to end users and recycling companies.
«China aims to use the identification system to solve key industry problems related to security, supervision and management, and to accelerate the integration of humanoid robots into daily life,» Yu Xiuming emphasized.
The robot’s digital passport will consist of 29 characters, divided into four blocks. The first two digits will identify a national code for tracking cross-border exports and sales. This will be followed by a four-digit identifier for the Chinese manufacturing company, a six-digit model-specific code, and a 17-digit individual serial number for the device.
The initiative has already covered more than 100 Chinese enterprises, and more than 28,000 robots in 200 modifications have received unique digital numbers. According to the consulting company IDC, the global market for humanoid robots is experiencing a real boom. Last year alone, global shipments increased by 508%, reaching about 18,000 units. Analysts emphasize that it is Chinese manufacturers who occupy leading positions in the world thanks to a comprehensive local infrastructure for supplying parts.
Recall that against the backdrop of the most rapid population decline in China in recent decades, experts from the largest British bank Barclays predict a decrease in the number of workers by 37 million in the next ten years. A decline of such a scale will be a serious challenge for the industrial sector, which generates about a quarter of China’s total GDP. The deployment of humanoid robots could compensate for up to 60% of the projected reduction.
