{"id":241791,"date":"2026-07-29T16:12:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:12:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/china-wants-to-solve-the-hardest-problem-in-robotics-making-hands"},"modified":"2026-07-29T16:12:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T21:12:15","slug":"china-wants-to-solve-the-hardest-problem-in-robotics-making-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/07\/china-wants-to-solve-the-hardest-problem-in-robotics-making-hands","title":{"rendered":"China wants to solve the hardest problem in robotics \u2014 making hands"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/china-wants-to-solve-the-hardest-problem-in-robotics-making-hands.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Human hands \u2013 nimble, nerve-filled appendages that are the most flexible part of the human skeleton \u2013 are exceptionally complex. Many tasks that most people can do largely without thinking, from tying a pair of shoelaces to buttoning up a shirt, in fact require a complex set of neurological instructions and precise choreography. In thousands of years of human history, no machine has been able to truly replicate human\u2019s greatest tool.<\/p>\n<p>But now, as artificial intelligence (AI) races forwards, some companies think they are close to surpassing this final but most difficult hurdle in robotics. Most of them are in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/china\">China<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A new suite of Chinese start-ups are leveraging China\u2019s advantages in manufacturing and enthusiasm for what the government calls \u201cembodied AI\u201d to build the fully dextrous robotic hands that are needed to transform <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/aug\/15\/china-world-humanoid-robot-games-advances-limitations\">humanoid robots<\/a> from dancing gimmicks into useful products.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Human hands \u2013 nimble, nerve-filled appendages that are the most flexible part of the human skeleton \u2013 are exceptionally complex. Many tasks that most people can do largely without thinking, from tying a pair of shoelaces to buttoning up a shirt, in fact require a complex set of neurological instructions and precise choreography. In thousands [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1490,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-241791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-robotics-ai"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/630"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}