China's State Grid has initiated the procurement and investment of nearly 10 billion smart devices, opening up new opportunities for the application of robots.

On April 22nd, it was reported that State Grid Corporation of China has internally issued the "2026 Intelligent Body Development Plan", planning to centrally purchase about 8,500 various intelligent body equipment this year, with a total investment of about 6.8 billion yuan, focusing on four main scenarios: power line inspection, live operation, emergency rescue, and warehousing logistics, aiming to promote the transformation of the power grid from "manual operation and maintenance" to "autonomous operation and maintenance". "If the follow-up purchases by Southern Power Grid and local energy groups are taken into account, the total investment in intelligent body technology in the power industry in 2026 is expected to exceed 10 billion yuan," predicted a core industry insider in the intelligent body technology application field to a reporter from Interface News. According to the above plan, the procurement list for 2026 is subdivided into three major categories, implementing a strategy of phased centralized procurement: Q1 pilot procurement, Q3 scaled procurement, Q4 supplementary procurement.