At recent industry shows, the machines actually moving boxes, sorting items and tending production lines are more often wheeled platforms wi
NextFin News — At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, exhibition halls filled with robots performing practical work. Galbot’s S1 lifted and stacked 30-kilogram crates. Other systems sorted household items or tended miniature production lines. Across the floor, the majority of machines handling continuous material movement used wheels rather than legs.
Industry tallies of new humanoid-style products released in the first half of 2026 show wheeled platforms slightly outnumbering bipedal ones for the first time. One alliance tracking the sector counted more than 90 new full-machine releases, with wheeled designs accounting for roughly 48 percent and bipedal designs about 45 percent. Companies including Galbot, Pudu, Fourier Intelligence, Qianxun and Youibot introduced or highlighted wheeled dual-arm models aimed at industrial and commercial tasks. Youibot announced its “Xifeng” series with list prices of 299,000 yuan for the standard version and 499,000 yuan for the advanced version, along with stated intent orders for 4,000 units.
The preference is not aesthetic. In factories, warehouses, supermarkets and hotels, floors are largely flat. A mature wheeled chassis already provides reliable locomotion, high payload capacity, long operating times and relatively low maintenance. Designers can therefore concentrate computing power, sensors and algorithms on vision, dual-arm coordination and task execution rather than on continuous balance. Bipedal systems must maintain stability while moving, avoiding obstacles and manipulating objects; any shift in gait or center of gravity can degrade arm precision. Wheeled platforms separate those problems.
Several manufacturers describe the choice in practical terms. Fourier has positioned its new wheeled dual-arm GRW as a complement to its bipedal line, noting that wheeled products reach customers faster and suit heavy or repetitive handling at controllable cost. Qianxun’s leadership has pointed to shared chassis technology and supply chains across models as a way to cut development time and manufacturing expense while reusing perception and control software. Youibot, which reports hundreds of prior industrial deployments, emphasizes that new machines can inherit existing scheduling and software systems, reducing the data and time required to reach usable task success rates.
The limitations are equally clear. Wheels struggle with stairs, thresholds and uneven ground. Many real-world environments still conta