Baidu executive charts road to mass-market humanoid robots

Shen Dou, executive vice president of Baidu and president of Baidu AI Cloud Group, speaks at the sub-forum "Advancement and Breakthrough of Humanoid Robotics" during the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2026 in Boao, south China's Hainan province, March 25, 2026. [Photo courtesy of Boao Forum for Asia]

Humanoid robots still face considerable hurdles before achieving large-scale application, Shen Dou, executive vice president of Baidu and president of Baidu AI Cloud Group, said Wednesday at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2026.

Shen, speaking at a sub-forum titled “Advancement and Breakthrough of Humanoid Robotics,” said that humanoid robots are still far from true large-scale application, with three major challenges standing in the way.

The first is insufficient stability, durability and dexterity. Pointing to last year's robot marathon as an example, he said on-site performance showed that the physical capabilities of robots still face significant tests.

The second is that technical approaches have yet to be unified. Although large AI models provide a common technological foundation for embodied intelligence, both the high-level decision system (responsible for overall planning and task management) and the low-level motion control system (responsible for fine motor coordination and real-time adjustments) are still being developed in a fragmented, decentralized manner.

The third is that data has not yet entered a self-reinforcing feedback loop. Unlike autonomous driving, where large-scale deployment drives continuous optimization, embodied intelligence remains largely in the experimental and data-collection stage, he said.

To address this, Shen revealed that Baidu has established a dedicated embodied intelligence data collection station in Dongguan, inviting different robot manufacturers to participate. "Once this hurdle is overcome, humanoid robots will achieve faster development," he said.

Notably, Shen said cost is not the core barrier. China's well-developed supply chain system means that as robots are refined through repeated real-world applications, costs will "certainly reach a level affordable for households," he said.

The real constraints on bringing humanoid robots into homes, he added, lie in product performance, safety mechanisms and the development of standards and regulations.