Eerily humanlike AI-powered robot enters mass production in China — its makers say it could soon be helping you out at home

BERLIN — An eerily lifelike humanoid robot made by Chinese technology company Xpeng has now entered mass production, company representatives revealed. They say it'll be the first such machine to walk itself off the production line.

The humanoid robot , dubbed IRON, went viral last year after presenters sliced it open onstage to prove a human wasn't inside. Xpeng will now produce units through its existing production facilities, with no word on how many its factories will aim to build.

The fabric skin-clad machine comes in different body shapes and even genders, but all stand approximately 5 feet 7 inches tall (173 centimeters) and weigh 143 pounds (65 kilograms). The prototype included 82 degrees of freedom (DoF) head to toe, including 22 DoF in each hand. They can also move at speeds of up to 6.5 feet per second (approximately 2 meters per second), which is equivalent to a fast power walk.

In conversations with Live Science, Xpeng representatives claimed that their machines will one day be used in homes to help with domestic chores like cleaning and folding laundry. They likened the introduction of humanoid robots more generally to the rise of smartphones in the mid-2000s and expect robots to proliferate on a similar scale over the next few years.

As such, they have extremely lofty expectations for IRON, with the company branding it the world's first "high-level, general-purpose" humanoid robot. Representatives added that it can receive instructions, plan its strategy, navigate the environment intelligently, and avoid obstacles without trial and error. The robot also has a "self-charging" feature, meaning it will seek out designated charging cabins and plug itself in when low on battery.

If the claims bear out, it will place IRON among the first such machines powered by artificial intelligence to be built on a massive scale. Competitors that have also entered mass production include American robotics company Figure AI's Figure 03 , which in May participated in a live-streamed production line demonstration, as well as the Chinese AGIBOT , which reached 15,000 units in June.

One notable company that hasn't entered its robot into mass production is Tesla. The Optimus robot is still in factory assembly, and its release has been delayed four times since 2022, most recently last year . Xpeng representatives were keen to point this out in briefing materials shared with Live Science, without mentioning other humanoid robot makers.

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