Gasgoo Munich- On the afternoon of March 2, Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, revealed that the company's humanoid robots have begun trial operations at its automobile manufacturing facilities. Over the next five years, he said, Xiaomi expects to deploy large numbers of such robots across its factories, signaling a long-term commitment to integrating embodied AI into its production system.
Image source: Lei Jun's WeChat account
Providing an update on the robotics program, Mr. Lei said Xiaomi's humanoid platform is built on its in-house VLA foundation model, Xiaomi-Robotics-0, enhanced by multimodal perception and reinforcement learning. The robots have begun autonomously performing tasks such as loading self-tapping nuts at assembly stations and transporting material bins within the plant. According to the company, key operational metrics—including mean time between failures and single-task success rates—are steadily improving, with validation and deployment expanding to additional standardized workstations.
Lei acknowledged that the transition from laboratory testing to real-world production presents a formidable challenge, particularly in meeting strict manufacturing cycle times. In research settings, repeated failures are tolerable in pursuit of a breakthrough. On an automotive production line, however, consistency is paramount—each task must succeed virtually every time to meet throughput and quality requirements. While current demonstrations may still appear tentative, he characterized the move into live factory environments as a meaningful first step.
Lei added that Xiaomi intends to play an active role in advancing large-scale applications of general-purpose humanoid robots in intelligent manufacturing, underscoring the company's ambition to extend its technology ecosystem beyond consumer electronics and electric vehicles into the next wave of industrial automation.
