More than 300 companies in China are now building humanoid and service robots. Almost none of that capability has reached the institutions that should be assessing it, in Canada or in the countries that need it most. CRI is the independent bridge: we go, we look, we report.
At the World Robot Conference in Beijing this year, one company worked only on the hand. Another only on the tendon. A third only on the skin. Dozens build the whole robot. The engineering is real and it is moving faster than anyone outside the sector understands.
What has not been built is the layer that turns that capability into a decision someone can act on. A UN logistics officer, a Canadian hospital, a mining operator in Sudbury or a ministry in Kathmandu cannot read forty Chinese spec sheets and know which two matter. Nobody independent has done the reading for them.
The gaps are practical. A warehouse interior runs 10 to 15 degrees above ambient. Kabul averages minus 4°C at night in January. Juba runs close to 38°C in the dry season, which puts a warehouse well past 45°C. The robot on the spec sheet stops working at both ends, and the spec sheet does not say so in a way a procurement committee will notice.
CRI exists to do the reading, in the field, and publish what we find, without selling assessments to the companies being assessed.
| Operating temperature | 0-45°C (most models) |
| Environment | Indoor, flat, dry floor |
| Ingress protection | None stated, occasionally IP54 |
| Runtime | 2-4 hours, hot-swap on some |
| Payload | 5-10 kg (10 kg confirmed on one wheeled model) |
| Support outside China | Dealer-dependent, often none |
| Independent field test | Not available |
CRI is deliberately small. We do not lobby, certify or sell. We look, we connect and we publish.
Factory floors, live deployments and exhibition halls, read against the conditions of the places robots are meant to work.
Manufacturers, Canadian institutions, UN agencies and national robotics associations rarely sit in the same room. We put them there.
What moved, what is real, what to ignore. Written by people who were in the room, for people who have to decide.
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