Editor-Curated Robotics Industry Briefing - RobotToday

Ji'er 2.0: The First Humanoid Robot Transforming Smart Breeding in China

On September 4, 2026, at the 33rd China Beijing Seed Industry Conference, the team led by Xu Cao from the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences unveiled Ji'er 2.0, the world's first humanoid intelligent breeding robot. This fully domestically produced robot can autonomously navigate through tomato flowers and perform pollination in under 10 seconds. The significance of Ji'er lies in its innovative strategy called 'crop-robot collaborative design.' Traditional hybrid pollination relies heavily on manual labor, with hybrid varieties accounting for over 90% of commercial seeds. The Xu Cao team has re-engineered flower structures through gene editing, allowing the robot to effectively perform pollination tasks, improving the accuracy of stigma recognition from 85% to 92.8%. The upgraded Ji'er 2.0 features a dual-arm system, enhancing its adaptability. It can autonomously operate in various conditions, significantly reducing labor intensity in hybrid pollination. The technology has also been validated in soybean breeding, and future applications may extend to extraterrestrial environments, potentially aiding in greenhouse construction on the Moon or Mars. No further timeline was disclosed at the time of publication.