Beyond dancing and boxing: Inside China’s race to turn humanoid robots into industrial workforce

China’s humanoid robots are getting very good at putting on a show. They can sprint, dance, box, play football and perform feats that would have sounded improbable only a few years ago. But behind the viral videos and increasingly eye-catching demonstrations lies a far more consequential experiment: China is trying to figure out whether these machines can move from spectacle to something the economy can actually use.

That question is becoming harder to dismiss as a futuristic one. What China is building is no longer confined to isolated laboratory prototypes or choreographed tech demos; the scale of participation, investment and experimentation suggests an industry being pushed rapidly towards the mainstream.