Field Notes from IROS 2025 – Walking Among Robots in Hangzhou

It’s hard to describe the sound of thousands of robots and researchers sharing the same space – the hum of motors mixing with laughter, sensors blinking like city lights. The International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) has once again become the beating heart of the global robotics community.

This year, Humanoid.guide is represented by our Human Interface: Andreas Augdahl , and he has spent the past few days walking the exhibition halls, talking with humanoid enthusiasts from every corner of the world – from graduate students with 3D-printed prototypes to established players unveiling full-scale bipedal machines. The energy is contagious.

Still a lot of show, but the next version is coming

There’s still plenty of show-off mode on display: pre-programmed movements, staged sequences, and carefully choreographed demos. Autonomous, real-world deployments in the industry and in people´s homes are gradually happening but also remains something most teams talk about as part of the next version.

But the ambition is clear: everyone is moving toward embodied intelligence. You hear the same keywords echoing through the conference halls and the evening dinners: Embodied AI, Manipulation and hands, Vision-Language Models, Energy Efficiency, Soft Robotic & Safety (just watch the video to the right for a close call accident 0:45 into the video 😉 )

IROS25 — Hesheng Wang, General Chair, IROS 2025 Organization Committee:

East meets West — two different tempos

One conversation thread keeps surfacing: Asia – and China in particular – is developing fast, with a strong application-first mindset as well as manufacturing capacities and cost levels. In contrast, Western institutions emphasize Embodied AI research, and standardization.

China’s ambitions are unmistakable. The announcement that IROS 2025 will be held in Hangzhou felt symbolic – a statement that the region is positioning itself as a central hub for Robotics & Intelligent Systems.

Humanoid Manufacturers like Unitree , Ubtech, Noetix, Agibot, Kepler and many more are showcasing their new products.

Unitree H2

Unitree launched their H2 robot on Monday, just before the IROS-25 event and it would be the biggest star of the show, if it only would be moving around or showing it´s talents rather than standing like a mannequin on a podium behind protective barriers.

The launch video of the H2 showcases a robot that seems like what the Tesla Optimus Gen3 (still behind curtains) could have been and we were hoping to see the H2 showcase its´s graceful moves in front of all the Robotics nerds present at the Hangzhou floors. The launch might have come too early on the team and instead, they are sending it´s little brother, the G1 on to the exhibition floor to do the sales pitch for Unitree´s excellent engineering work.

Hands, materials and modularity

One noticeable trend this year: hands everywhere. Vendors and labs are experimenting with new efficient and compact end-effectors, adaptive and modular. The shift is toward robustness, modular components, and real-world durability. Soft robotics and material design are becoming serious enablers, not side-projects. This resonates deeply with what we’ve been tracking at Humanoid.guide. Our Humanoid Robot Market Report 2026 highlights dexterous hands as one of the two hardest gates to real-world humanoid deployment – the other being safety.

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Bird perspective reflections

After hours of conversations, demos, and spontaneous debates over noodles and coffee, one impression stands out: Robotics is entering its “real-world” phase. Everyone here knows that the next leap won’t be a prettier demo – it will be deployment. And that shift will depend on reliability, interoperability, and shared standards – exactly what we try to map every day at Humanoid.guide. For those following the humanoid ecosystem closely, the new Humanoid Robot Market Report 2026 offers a structured snapshot of what IROS feels like in motion: research turning into products, prototypes into platforms, and a global community converging around a common goal – to make humanoids useful.