The International Embodied Intelligence Competition has launched its global call for participants, with the event scheduled for Oct 23 to 25 at the Zhangjiang Science Hall in Shanghai.

The competition is open to all the innovators across the industry, including robot manufacturers, core component and technology suppliers, AI algorithm and large-model companies, startup teams, and open-source community contributors.

Each team must have no more than five members, with at least one member having experience in model debugging or robot operation to ensure the professionalism.

The competition is designed to tackle the industry's most pressing challenges: despite humanoid robots are capable of dancing and long-distance running, many robots struggle to perform stably in application scenarios including factory assembly, laboratory test tube sorting, goods packaging, and plant safety inspections.

The competition adopts an industry-driven, technology-oriented approach, converting real production demands from enterprises into standardized, quantifiable, and replicable competition tasks. Participants will conduct hands-on testing with actual robots in authentic operational environments.

The competition offers a prize pool exceeding 1 million yuan ($147,969), with champions, runners-up, and second runners-up across all categories sharing the total.

Champion teams can receive capital recommendations from both municipal and district authorities, potential investment matching exceeding 10 million yuan, and free entry into top-tier incubators such as Model Matrix Community and Zhangjiang AI InnoPark.

In addition, an international competition zone will be established at the Shanghai Eastern Hub International Business Cooperation Zone to facilitate global technology exchange.

Overseas participants may enter the zone using valid international travel documents and invitation records without applying for regular Chinese visas, with single stays of up to 30 days and extension eligibility.

They will also experience efficient customs clearance services as the competition equipment entering from abroad could enjoy bonded supervision policies and be smoothly re-exported after the event.

Industry experts noted that real-machine, real-scenario, and real-testing conditions represent the essential path for embodied intelligence technology to move beyond demonstrations toward large-scale commercial deployment.

Source: Shanghai Observer