China’s robot makers have mastered the moves. Now comes the race for brains

BEIJING: After years of building humanoid robots capable of running, dancing and performing backflips, Chinese companies are pouring resources into a different challenge: developing the AI that could make those machines useful across a wider range of jobs.

The shift is fuelling an investment boom in embodied AI, a field focused on software that allows robots to understand their surroundings, learn unfamiliar tasks and adapt without having to be programmed for every job.