The robot wearing a cotton padded jacket twisted its waist and turned a handkerchief; A robot that transforms into a culinary master to brew coffee, spread pancakes, and make grilled skewers; On the production line, robots become the "workers" of production robots... These scenes in science fiction movies are moving towards reality, and robots have changed people's lives. Robots are known as the "crown jewels at the top of the manufacturing industry", and facing the vast blue ocean, major cities are accelerating their layout. Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai and other places are making great strides, throwing heavy punches at policies and competing for this trillion dollar blue ocean. Nanjing, known as the 'Chinese Software City', will naturally not be absent from this competition. In November 2024, the "Action Plan for Promoting High Quality Development of the Robot Industry in Nanjing (2024-2026)" was launched, aiming to become the first tier of the domestic robot industry by 2026 and create a benchmark for innovative demonstration applications of "Robot+" in China. The goal for Nanjing is not low. From a national perspective, with the fierce competition in the "City of Robots", what is the confidence of Nanjing to "seize the opportunity"? On August 8th, the 2025 World Robot Conference kicked off in Beijing, with over 200 domestic and foreign robot companies exhibiting and bringing more than 1500 exhibits, thanks to the obvious innate advantages and industrial genes that support the "City of the Future". More than ten robotics related companies in Nanjing competed on the same stage with multiple products. At the exhibition site, a slender humanoid robot with a cool appearance can easily handle tasks such as grabbing workpieces and performing precise transfer movements. This is the second-generation humanoid robot Codroid 02 released by Nanjing Eston Kuzhuo Technology Co., Ltd. in June this year. The Codroid 02 independently developed by the enterprise can rely on online learning capabilities to continuously expand its skill pool and adapt to the needs of flexible manufacturing. ”The general manager of the company, Li Yuanping, said. As an artificial intelligence enterprise that has grown up locally in Nanjing, Eston's development history is almost consistent with the trajectory of Nanjing's robotics industry. As early as 1993, Eston started with servo motors and gradually extended downstream from core components until entering the industrial robot race in 2011. To this day, it has consistently ranked first among domestic brands in terms of annual shipments of industrial robots for seven consecutive years, with shipments exceeding 30000 units last year. The strong advanced manufacturing chassis in Nanjing provides a solid foundation for the Estun racing robot industry track; At the same time as the development and growth of the Estun robot industry, it has also gathered a full industry chain ecosystem for Nanjing. ”According to Zhu Chunhua, CEO of Estun Automation Co., Ltd., the company has already built four intelligent manufacturing factories in Nanjing. It is worth mentioning that Jiangning Development Zone, where Estun headquarters is located, has become the "core" of the "one core, multiple wings" strategic layout for the development of Nanjing's robotics industry. Jiangning Development Zone has gathered more than 100 upstream and downstream enterprises in the intelligent robot industry chain, with a production value exceeding 17 billion yuan in 2024. Whether it is the number of robot companies or their output value, Jiangning District has already occupied half of Nanjing's territory. Last year, Jiangning Development Zone and Estun jointly implemented the "Double Hundred Billion" action, which is expected to drive Estun's revenue to exceed 10 billion yuan and form a billion yuan industrial chain ecosystem by 2030. Nanjing is based in the field of industrial robots and has a deep overall industry accumulation. ”Niu Dan, Vice Dean of the School of Automation at Southeast University, analyzed that "looking at the whole country, Nanjing has great potential to make efforts in industrial scale and achievement transformation." In the past five years, China's robot industry has shown explosive growth by improving the industrial system and leading new development through innovation. However, the growth rate of new registrations of robot enterprises has slightly slowed down this year, indicating that the market is shifting from a rapid expansion stage to a rational competition stage, and the development of the robot industry is about to enter the "second half". Entering a new stage of development, the layout path of Nanjing's robot industry also has traces to follow. In April 2022, Huichuan Technology officially signed a contract and landed in Jiangning District, Nanjing, with a focus on the industrial robot sector. At the end of last year, the project was put into operation, and after full production, the annual production capacity of industrial robot products reached 120000 sets. The manufacturing of complete industrial robots in Nanjing has entered a new stage of development led by multiple leading enterprises. In addition to Huichuan Technology, Nanjing also has a group of specialized robot backbone enterprises such as Yijiahe, Hengli, Tianchuang, and Keyuan Co., Ltd., as well as a group of innovative service robot enterprises such as Sumida Intelligence, Tuodao Medical, and Weilan Technology, forming a product system covering multiple scenarios such as logistics, safety emergency, public services, and personal consumption, achieving several global firsts. The ecological system of Nanjing's robot industry is well-established, and it is in a leading position in the industrial field in China, which is inseparable from its solid foundation and cluster effect in the intelligent manufacturing equipment industry. ”Song Aiguo, Chief Professor and Director of the Department of Electrical Instrument Control at Southeast University, believes that the abundant talent reserve and strong scientific research capabilities are the source of vitality for Nanjing's industrial innovation and development. Entering the Kirin Science and Technology Innovation Park, Zhongke Siji (Nanjing) Robot Co., Ltd. is equipped with a newly developed "Boundless" industrial robot that is operated by a self-developed humanoid dexterous hand. It has a joint structure and dexterity similar to humans, and can complete a full range of tasks from the ground to a height of 2 meters. The "Wuji" industrial robot is just one of the intelligent robot series products recently released by Zhongke Siji, which is capable of operating human like dexterous devices. From algorithms to structures, drivers, sensors, integrated circuits, etc., all of them are independently developed by the team, and the core components are 100% domestically produced. This enterprise with "hardcore" technology has only been established for one year. Zhongke Siji was incubated by Zhongke Nanjing Artificial Intelligence Innovation Research Institute, and is the first project incubated since the exploration of the "5V (victory) integrated" new model for the transformation of achievements in Qilin Science and Technology Innovation Park. In recent years, the park has established a results transformation system of "platform+fund+company+carrier", joined forces with social capital to support enterprises to quickly complete multiple rounds of financing, promoted multi scenario joint testing, and accelerated the key leap of enterprise core products from laboratory to industrialization. "Relying on the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the park gathers innovative resources of 'six institutes and seven academies', builds a batch of core carrier projects such as artificial intelligence industrial parks, and has hundreds of associated enterprises in the field of artificial intelligence. ”Fang Ming, director of the Economic Development Department of the Management Committee of Kirin Science and Technology Innovation Park, said that the park is currently preparing to build relevant scientific research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to provide a continuous "source of water" for the development of Nanjing's robot industry. Breaking down institutional barriers and competing at full speed to climb new heights, while maintaining a leading advantage, Nanjing is also actively taking action in the face of the shortcomings of the robotics industry. In March of this year, Nanjing officially unveiled the establishment of the Robot Industry Breakthrough Promotion Office, taking mechanism innovation as a breakthrough point and striving to climb to new heights in the development of the robot industry at full speed. In June of this year, the "Action Plan for the Development of Nanjing's Embodied Intelligent Robot Industry (2025-2027) (Draft for Comments)" was released, proposing that by 2027, the core industry scale of Nanjing's embodied intelligent robot industry will exceed 10 billion yuan. At the same time as the policy is being implemented, Nanjing has also released two lists of major application scenarios, further promoting the integration of supply and demand. Among them, the "Capability List" gathers more than 60 robots, covering industrial, safety emergency, public services, etc., fully demonstrating the company's research and development and production capabilities. The 'Opportunity List' has identified over 500 positions, divided into 8 categories including industrial manufacturing, security inspection, transportation and logistics, requiring more than 500 robots to be employed. At the Nanjing Medical Insurance Management Center, the intelligent medical insurance service robot developed by Nanda Electronic Information Technology Co., Ltd. is providing medical insurance services to residents. This medical insurance robot has 9 business capabilities and can provide 12 online medical insurance services, including policy consultation, business processing, and rights inquiry. ”Zhang Liang, Deputy Director of the Insurance Business Department of Nanjing Medical Insurance Center, who participated in the robot design, introduced that currently this robot has processed more than 76700 medical insurance transactions, with an average of over 2950 transactions per month, greatly relieving the pressure of manual window processing. As a national high-tech enterprise under Nanjing University, Nanda Electronics has honed its skills over the past decade and developed a tailored intelligent robot system. Nowadays, enterprise intelligent service robots have expanded to a wide range of fields such as finance, government affairs, healthcare, elderly care, and cultural tourism. The biggest characteristic of the development of the robot industry in Nanjing is' practicality ', focusing on the needs of real scenarios and allowing robots to truly work. ”The head of the Nanjing Robot Industry Promotion Office stated that since 2021, the city's robot industry has seen a revenue growth rate of over 30% for three consecutive years. In the past two years, Nanjing has accelerated its layout in the humanoid robot industry. At the end of July this year, the first AI block in Nanjing was unveiled at the China (Nanjing) Software Valley in Yuhuatai District. Within five years, it will gather 1000 AI upstream and downstream enterprises, create 500 vertical application products, and the core industry output value will exceed 100 billion yuan. In order to focus on technological innovation and application development in cutting-edge AI fields such as embodied intelligence, the Southeast University Technology Transfer Center has been established in the neighborhood, striving to promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation. Exploring the 'City of Robots', Nanjing is closely laying out its plans to seize more opportunities. (New Society)