Isabella Bai, Founder and CEO of INFIFORCE, said China’s technology ecosystem is moving beyond manufacturing excellence to defining the cognitive foundations of next-generation artificial intelligence, as humanoid robotics enters a decisive phase. Speaking at CES 2026 during the panel “Not Quite Human: How Humanoids are Changing Work and Home Life,” Isabella Bai identified intelligence—not hardware—as the core bottleneck in today’s AI robotics industry.

Isabella Bai noted that while mechanical engineering and hardware capabilities have matured rapidly, most humanoid robots still lack true cognitive understanding. “A robot without causal intelligence is just a sophisticated puppet,” she said, arguing that the future of embodied intelligence lies in giving machines the ability to perceive, reason, decide, and act in a closed loop.

At CES 2026, INFIFORCE showcased its proprietary Causal World Model and Hyper-VLA (Vision-Language-Action) Foundation Model, designed to bridge the gap between virtual intelligence and real-world execution. Together, the technologies create a unified “Perception–Cognition–Decision–Execution” framework, enabling robots to understand physical laws, predict outcomes, reduce hallucinations, and operate autonomously with higher safety and reliability.

The company’s strategy of deploying a single unified “brain” across multiple robotic bodies has already translated into strong commercial traction. INFIFORCE has secured commercial orders worth approximately CNY 500 million (USD 71.55 million) across the automotive and healthcare sectors.

INFIFORCE also presented its expanding product portfolio at CES. The AstroDroid humanoid robot series, powered by NVIDIA Jetson AGX Orin, features human-level dexterous arms and advanced mobility, with the flagship AD-01 standing 170 cm tall and offering 43 degrees of freedom. The FORCE autonomous mobile charging robot introduces a “robot finds vehicle” model and is already deployed by enterprises such as Sinopec, Wanda, and Intime. The company’s Hyper-Components, including the lightweight HyperArm, ensure precise execution of AI commands in physical environments.

Founded in 2023 and headquartered in Hangzhou, INFIFORCE focuses on embodied AI, with R&D centers in Shenzhen and Beijing. Over 75 percent of its team holds postgraduate degrees, and the company has filed dozens of patents. Isabella Bai emphasized that real-world physical data, not internet text, will define the next leap in AI, positioning INFIFORCE’s data-model-body growth loop as a key competitive advantage.