Humanoid robots start the sorting mail at China Post depots

By Matthew Griffin Robo Revolution 2nd May 2026

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

State-backed humanoids in core logistics signal China racing to automate everyday industrial labour at scale.

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It’s no secret by now that the Chinese tech sector is going all-in on robotics. Last September, the country broke the record for the number of industrial robots in operation; the People’s Republic likewise produces about of the world’s humanoid robots, which Dark Factories and kiosks are experimenting with across the country.

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Now, even China’s state-owned postal carrier is getting in on the frenzy. According photos , a state media organ, humanoid robots are now being deployed to sort packages at a major mail processing facility in the southern city of Guangzhou.

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The facility, run by the country’s state-owned mail enterprise China Post Group, has installed an unspecified number of humanoid package handlers, which together are capable of processing up to 1,200 parcels per hour, People’s Daily claims.

According to reporting shared on , the robot in question is a , produced by the company RobotEra. Though the base unit isn’t bipedal – it appears to be a torso on a stand – the M7 is advertised as having a 360-degree field of view integrated with 3D LiDAR, which it uses to guide arms its with 7 degrees of freedom, and hands with 12.

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Humanoids are in industrial settings like these around the world, where arm and finger dexterity is often prioritised over mobility. While the M7 can be upgraded to have legs, the package sorters in Guangzhou are static and posted at stations along a conveyor belt which brings the packages to them.

Despite the buzzy photo-op, there is a question of how efficient each particular M7 actually is on the jobsite, especially compared to a human package handler. In a of a similar robot by US firm Figure AI, a human intern was able to sort 192 more packages than his metallic co-worker over a 10-hour shift, despite taking lunch and bathroom breaks.

Either way, the visible presence of humanoids in a state-owned mail facility – and their spotlight in People’s Daily – is a pretty solid sign of Chinese authorities’ confidence in the country’s robotics industry. In addition to a growing army of M7s, the China Post hub employs a legion of robotic arms and unmanned forklifts, processing an average of 6.5 million parcels a day.

While humanoids probably won’t be doing all the industrial lifting anytime soon, their increasingly productive presence in the factories of the world is becoming pretty difficult to ignore.

Are humanoid robots ready to replace human parcel handlers?
Not yet — early tests show a human intern still out-sorted a comparable robot, but their spreading presence in state facilities shows where the trajectory is heading.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Matthew Griffin is a multi-award winning Futurist and expert in Disruption and Innovation, Geopolitics, Leadership, and Technology, who NASA have described as a "walking encyclopaedia of the future" and a "futurist Polymath." 15-time best selling author of the "Codex of the Future" series, Matthew is the Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm working with royal households, world leaders, G7, G20, and G77 governments, NGOs, and multi-national mid and mega cap firms to help them explore, shape, and lead the next 50 years of business and society.

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