China to build robot 'boot camps' as gyms to power next-gen humanoids

China plans to establish a network of robot "boot camps"—large-scale training facilities acting as gyms or obstacle courses for humanoid robots—in major cities including Beijing and Shanghai. The largest facility, located in Beijing’s Shijingshan district, will span over 108,000 square feet and generate more than 6 million data points annually. These camps will simulate real-world environments such as factories, retail shops, elderly care centers, and smart homes, enabling robots to practice tasks and gather standardized, high-quality training data. This initiative aims to address the current bottleneck in China’s robotics industry caused by inconsistent and costly data collection methods, facilitating improved AI development and data sharing among robotics companies. This effort is part of China’s broader strategic push to lead in embodied intelligence—AI integrated into physical robots—and to compete with the United States, which currently deploys far fewer industrial robots annually (about one-tenth of China’s 300,000). The boot camps will form a national network linked across