By Lü Xiao and Wu Huiyuan
Humanoid robots have dominated China’s tech headlines this year — dancing on the Spring Festival Gala stage, running marathons, even sparring in boxing rings. But far from the spotlight, in a 4,000-square-meter data collection factory in Shanghai, a quieter revolution is underway. Here, young operators remotely guide robots through thousands of everyday tasks, generating the scarce data needed to teach machines how to work in the real world. This is where China’s next generation of “robot workers” are being raised — one motion, one mistake, one lesson at a time.
Data collectors work at the data collection facility in Shanghai, November 2025. Wu Huiyuan/Sixth Tone
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