China's power grid has launched a nearly 10 billion yuan procurement and investment program for embody smart devices, opening up new possibilities for robot applications.

Mars Finance reported on April 24th that the State Grid Corporation of China has internally issued the "2026 Embodied Intelligence Development Plan," planning to centrally procure approximately 8,500 units of various embodied intelligent equipment this year, with a total investment of approximately 6.8 billion yuan. The plan focuses on four key scenarios: power line inspection, live-line working, emergency rescue, and warehousing and logistics, aiming to promote the transformation of the power grid from "manual operation and maintenance" to "autonomous operation and maintenance." "If the follow-up procurement by the Southern Power Grid and local energy groups is included, the industry expects the total investment in embodied intelligence in the power industry to exceed 10 billion yuan in 2026," predicted a core industry chain insider in embodied intelligence applications. It is understood that the robot manufacturers involved in this procurement include CloudMinds, Unitree Robotics, Logic, UBTECH Robotics, and Fourier Transform. According to the aforementioned planning document, the 2026 procurement list is subdivided into three categories, implementing a phased centralized procurement strategy: pilot procurement in Q1, large-scale procurement in Q3, and supplementary procurement in Q4. Among them, quadrupedal inspection robot dogs are the largest single category, with a procurement quantity of 5,000 units and a budget of 1.5 billion yuan, mainly deployed in substations, transmission lines, and mountain power grids; humanoid live-line working robots are the highest-priced category, with a procurement quantity of 500 units and a budget of 2.5 billion yuan, and application scenarios covering distribution network live-line work and ultra-high voltage projects; dual-arm inspection robots have a procurement quantity of 3,000 units and a budget of 1.8 billion yuan, mainly used for substation equipment operation and fault handling. (Jiemian)