China Southern Power Grid hosts the power industry's first embodied intelligence application competition, with robots performing tasks such as substation inspections
On November 3, the semifinals (practical competition) of the 2026 Power Embodied Intelligence Application Competition kicked off at China Southern Power Grid's Guangdong Dongguan Power Supply Bureau. This is the first embodied intelligence application competition in China's power industry, featuring three major assessment events: substation equipment inspection, emergency power outage operations, and voltage testing before electric meter replacement. Ultimately, 6 teams were selected to advance to the finals. The competition was launched in September this year, with a total of 140 units registering and forming 93 participating teams; 15 teams advanced to the offline practical competition. In April this year, State Grid issued the "2026 Embodied Intelligence Development Plan," planning to procure 8,500 embodied intelligence devices with a total investment of approximately 6.8 billion yuan.
Body · AI translation
Yicai learned from China Southern Power Grid (CSG) that on November 3, the semifinals (practical competition) of the 2026 Electric Power Embodied Intelligence Application Competition officially kicked off at the technical skills practical training base of CSG's Guangdong Dongguan Power Supply Bureau.
This is the first embodied intelligence application competition in China's power industry. Organized by CSG, the event focuses on the implementation and application of embodied intelligence technology in real power operation scenarios, bringing together forces from industry, academia, research and application to promote the deep integration of robotics technology and power production.
During interviews, the reporter learned that all tasks in this practical competition are drawn from real frontline power production operations. Three assessment items are set: substation equipment inspection, emergency power outage operations, and voltage testing before electric meter replacement. The competition focuses on testing the robots' perception, judgment, standardized operation and stable working capabilities in real and changeable substation environments, and on verifying how well the technology performs in moving from simulation to reality. In the end, six teams will be selected to advance to the finals.
Photo by reporter Lin Chunting
At present, embodied intelligence has been written into the Government Work Report for two consecutive years and has been included in the forward-looking layout of future industries in the Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, which explicitly proposes promoting embodied intelligence as a new growth point for the economy. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council have jointly organized a special action for real-scenario training of humanoid robots and embodied intelligence, promoting real-scenario verification of related products and accelerating large-scale deployment.
Against this backdrop, humanoid robots and embodied intelligence are accelerating their exit from laboratories and entry into real production scenarios, and the power industry is an important testing ground for the implementation of this technology.
In fact, the power industry's exploration of intelligent operation robots began long ago. From early specialized robots undertaking fixed-route inspections to today's embodied intelligent agents with perception, decision-making and execution capabilities, the power industry's exploration of robot operations in high-risk scenarios has continued to deepen. The new generation of embodied intelligence emphasizes autonomous adaptation and standardized operation in complex and changeable environments, which is highly consistent with real needs such as substation inspection and maintenance.
Based on the new energy security strategy and responding to the country's industrial development deployment, CSG organized this competition with the orientation of "promoting research through competition and promoting application through competition," precisely to build a bridge between technological innovation and on-site power applications.
Since the competition was launched in September this year, it has received positive responses from inside and outside the industry, attracting 140 units to register and forming 93 participating teams, bringing together innovative forces from leading robot companies, universities, research institutes, power units and other parties. After intense competition in the online simulation track, 15 teams stood out and advanced to this offline practical competition.
Hu Rong, a member of the Party Committee of China Southern Power Grid Digital Grid Group Co., Ltd., said at the opening ceremony that substation inspection and maintenance operations involve safety risks such as electric shock and work at heights, and a large amount of repetitive work consumes the energy of frontline personnel. The purpose of developing power embodied intelligence is to let robots take risks and bear burdens on behalf of people, freeing power employees from high-risk and repetitive labor. This practical competition is both a centralized test of each team's technological achievements and a way to identify existing shortcomings in the technology, providing a realistic basis for subsequent technological breakthroughs.
Staff from multiple participating teams told Yicai that through competition in real scenarios, they found that real scenarios place much higher demands on robots than laboratories. Ground friction and equipment positions in the laboratory are idealized, but the on-site environment is relatively complex, and robots need to adapt in real time.
It is understood that this practical competition will complete all subjects in real substation scenarios, identify a batch of embodied intelligence solutions suitable for power scenarios, help humanoid robots and intelligent operation robots integrate more quickly into the power grid production system, promote the digital and intelligent transformation and upgrading of the power industry, and also inject new industrial momentum into the construction of a new-type power system.
Photo by reporter Lin Chunting
Unlike ordinary industries, power scenarios can form a complete iterative closed loop of "scenario-data-model-standard." The power grid holds real equipment data, professional regulations and safety boundaries, while robot companies have body R&D and algorithm model capabilities. Only by combining the two can robots continuously accumulate data and iterate operating skills in real production environments.
As the value of scenarios continues to emerge, the industrial space for power embodied intelligence is also opening up at an accelerating pace. Data show that in April this year, State Grid internally issued the 2026 Embodied Intelligence Development Plan, planning to procure 8,500 embodied intelligence devices with a total investment of about 6.8 billion yuan, including 5,000 quadruped robot dogs, 500 humanoid live-working robots and 3,000 dual-arm inspection robots. Combined with demand from CSG and other energy companies, the industry expects that the scale of investment in embodied intelligence in the power industry in 2026 is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan.