The State Grid Corporation of China has initiated nearly 10 billion yuan in procurement and investment for embodied intelligent devices, opening new horizons for robot applications.

Mars Finance News, April 24 — 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 intelligence devices this year, with a total investment of about 6.8 billion yuan. The plan focuses on four major scenarios: power inspection, live-line operations, emergency rescue, and warehousing and logistics, aiming to help the power grid transition from “manual operation and maintenance” to “autonomous operation and maintenance.”

“If the follow-up procurement by China Southern Power Grid and local energy group companies is included, industry insiders expect that the total investment in embodied intelligence in the power sector in 2026 may exceed 10 billion yuan,” predicted a core industry-chain participant in embodied intelligence application. It is understood that the robot bodies included in this procurement include companies such as Yunshen Chu, Unitree, Zhiyuan, UBTECH, and Fourier.

According to the above planning document, the 2026 procurement list is broken down into three major categories, with an execution plan that uses a phased centralized procurement strategy: Q1 pilot procurement, Q3 large-scale procurement, and Q4 supplementary procurement. Among them, four-legged inspection robots are the largest single category, with 5,000 units to be procured and a budget of 1.5 billion yuan, mainly deployed at substations, transmission lines, and in mountainous power grids. Humanoid live-line operation robots are the highest unit-price category, with 500 units to be procured and a budget of 2.5 billion yuan; their application scenarios cover distribution network live-line operations and ultra-high-voltage projects. Dual-arm inspection robots have 3,000 units to be procured and a budget of 1.8 billion yuan, mainly used for substation equipment operation and fault handling. ( interface）