Reuters: China’s military accelerates development of humanoid robots to simulate urban warfare deployment in Taiwan

Reuters reviewed more than a hundred Chinese military procurement announcements, academic studies and official documents and found that China's defense agencies are accelerating the development of humanoid robots for military use and preparing for their eventual wartime deployment. Related work will gain momentum in 2025 and 2026, with a focus on robot perception, dexterous operation and training data. When exploring potential battlefields for military humanoid robots, Taiwan and urban warfare became key targets for the Communist military simulations.

The report pointed out that the Eastern Theater Command of the Communist Army released an artificial intelligence (AI)-generated video in December last year, showing military robots, including humanoid and quadrupedal robots, massively suppressing Taiwan's defenses in a hypothetical future conflict. In a paper published in August 2025, researchers from the National University of Defense Technology of China (NUDT) described a specific vision of urban warfare: integrating humanoid robots or robot dogs into commandos to cooperate with ground troops to clear buildings occupied by enemy forces floor by floor and room by room.

In this regard, scholars from Taiwan's Institute of National Defense and Security Research (INDSR) pointed out in interviews that advances in humanoid robots' balance and perception have made them extremely practical inside buildings, tunnels, and ships. Their hands and feet can theoretically perfectly combine mobility and operational capabilities. However, if it is a simple logistics or reconnaissance mission, quadruped or wheeled robots are still more cost-effective and large-scale deployment.

Global military technology is evolving rapidly, and the war in Ukraine in particular fully demonstrated the value of drones and robots in reconnaissance, attack, and logistics. After the World Humanoid Robot Games held in China last month, the People's Liberation Army Daily, the organ of the Central Military Commission of the Communist Party of China, immediately called on researchers to speed up the transfer of cutting-edge technology from laboratories to military training grounds to create robot "combatants."

According to data from BofA Global Research, Chinese manufacturers will account for approximately 95% of global humanoid robot shipments in 2025. This overwhelming commercial advantage allows the Chinese military to easily master and transform civilian technologies. Although the U.S. Army is also seeking to develop militarized humanoid robots to accompany soldiers in combat, the U.S. robotics industry has lagged far behind China in the development of bipedal and quadrupedal machines.

As research and development expands from academia to the defense industry, the Chinese military has not only held robot competitions simulating "sneaking behind enemy lines" in recent years, but has also released a number of procurement bids. In terms of physical applications, the "Fuxi" full-size humanoid robot manufactured by China's state-owned defense giant Norinco claims to have remote operation capabilities and can perform sentry, all-weather reconnaissance and high-risk missions.