NAVAI-I3

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The NAVAI-I3 (also written NAVIAI-I3) is a full-size humanoid robot developed by the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (浙江人形机器人创新中心), a government-backed research and commercialization hub located in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province, China. Unveiled on November 12, 2025, the NAVAI-I3 is the center's most advanced humanoid platform to date, featuring 82 degrees of freedom, 2,250 TOPS of onboard AI computing power, and a rugged frame designed for security, inspection, and industrial applications.^[1][2]

Standing 1.8 meters tall and weighing approximately 80 kilograms, the NAVAI-I3 is notably larger and more robust than its predecessor, the Navigator 2 (NAVIAI-I2), which stood 1.65 meters and weighed 60 kilograms. The robot is capable of walking and running at speeds up to 9 km/h over uneven terrain, performing movements such as bending and squatting, and even engaging in light basketball drills.^[1][3] Its design emphasizes multi-terrain mobility and physical durability, earning it the informal nickname "mechanical policeman" in Chinese media.^[2]

Who develops the NAVAI-I3?

The Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center was formally established on December 21, 2023, as a joint initiative between the Ningbo Municipal People's Government and the robotics laboratory of Professor Xiong Rong (熊蓉) at Zhejiang University.^[4][5] The center is structured as a technology company and serves as a high-level innovation platform covering research and development, commercialization, talent cultivation, and industrial ecosystem building in the field of humanoid robotics.^[5] By August 2024, roughly eight months after its founding, the center had reached a valuation of about 1.8 billion yuan, according to reporting by Jiemian News.^[21]

Professor Xiong Rong, the center's Chief Scientist, is a Qiushi Distinguished Professor at Zhejiang University. She has been involved in robotics education and research since 2001, building robotics education platforms, competitions, and course systems at the university. In 2016, she co-founded IPLUSMOBOT, which became one of China's leading providers of autonomous mobile robot systems for industrial logistics. Many of her former students have gone on to found prominent robotics companies, including Zhu Qiuguo (founder of Deep Robotics) and Wang Shiquan (founder of Flexiv).^[6] In March 2026, she received the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) "Women Shaping the Future of Robotics 2026" award in recognition of her contributions to the field.^[6] Xiong has framed the center's aim as building robots capable of practical embodied-intelligence work rather than chasing a perfectly humanoid form, and in a 2024 interview she estimated that non-bipedal service robots could take on commercial service tasks "in about five years," with fully bipedal models taking longer.^[24]

SUPCON Technology Co., Ltd., a Hangzhou-based industrial automation company that went public on the SIX Swiss Exchange in April 2023 (raising approximately $565 million), is the primary shareholder and strategic backer of the center. SUPCON injected an initial 17.62 million yuan in early 2024 through a share issuance.^[7][8] The investment aligns with SUPCON's strategic objective of integrating artificial intelligence with robotics to serve the manufacturing sector.

Funding

The center has attracted substantial investment since its founding. Its Pre-A funding round, completed in January 2026 with more than 13 participating institutions, raised 450 million yuan (approximately $65 million), with participation from industrial capital investors including SUPCON, China Merchants Innovation and Technology, Lenovo Capital, Fengyuan Capital, and the Ningbo Industrial Internet Institute.^[9][22] Government-backed funds such as the Zhejiang Province Venture Capital Group and Yuexiu Industrial Fund also participated, alongside market-oriented funds like FG VENTURE.^[9] As of early 2026, the center has raised a cumulative total of approximately 2.2 billion yuan over the 18 months since its founding.^[9]

Development history

The Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center has followed a rapid product iteration cycle, releasing three generations of humanoid robots within roughly two years of its founding.

Navigator Alpha (March 2024)

The center's first humanoid prototype, the Navigator Alpha (Navigator α, 领航者α), was unveiled in March 2024 alongside the official launch of the research team in Ningbo's Haishu District. Standing 1.5 meters tall and weighing 50 kilograms, the Navigator Alpha featured lightweight mechanical arms and a dexterous hand with 15 finger joints and six active degrees of freedom. It demonstrated basic bipedal walking, terrain adaptation, and coordinated full-body motion including tasks such as wiping a table, pouring water, and dancing.^[7][10]

Navigator 2 / NAVIAI-I2 (August 2024)

The second-generation model, the Navigator 2 (also designated NAVIAI-I2, 领航者2号), was introduced on August 17, 2024, and showcased at the 2024 World Robot Conference in Beijing. Standing 1.65 meters tall and weighing 60 kilograms, the Navigator 2 featured 41 degrees of freedom and 275 TOPS of AI computing power. It demonstrated advanced capabilities including speech delivery, tea preparation, and playing chess with smooth, natural movements.^[11][12]

The Navigator 2 represented a significant leap in manipulation precision, achieving breakthroughs in three key technology areas: data generation, behavior decision-making, and underlying control. The center reported that the Navigator 2 achieved sub-millimeter accuracy (0.1 mm end-effector accuracy) in laboratory tests and a reliable assembly success rate exceeding 99.99% on industrial production lines for clients including Huawei.^[4][13]

NAVAI-I3 (November 2025)

The NAVAI-I3 was unveiled on November 12, 2025, at the center's facility in Haishu District, Ningbo. Compared to the Navigator 2, the I3 model is significantly larger, heavier, and more capable, with double the degrees of freedom and nearly an order of magnitude more computing power. Its design philosophy shifted from primarily dexterous manipulation toward a combination of robust mobility, physical endurance, and intelligent task execution in challenging real-world environments.^[1][2]

The NAVIAI product family and wheeled-arm models

The center markets its robots under the NAVIAI (Navigator, 领航者) brand and has developed two parallel form factors: a bipedal I-series (Navigator Alpha, NAVIAI-I2, and NAVAI-I3) and a wheeled-arm WA-series optimized for precise, stationary manipulation. The NAVIAI-WA1, a wheeled-arm robot, targets ultra-precise industrial and laboratory tasks, achieving roughly 0.02 mm manipulation precision; in a chemical-laboratory demonstration it performed autonomous plugging and unplugging at 0.1 mm-level precision, with a reported success rate of 99.99% over 10,000 trials and quantitative liquid dispensing accurate to within 1 mL.^[23][26] Alongside the NAVAI-I3, the center announced a forthcoming NAVIAI-WA2 aimed at commercial and household services such as cleaning, cooking, and elder care, targeted for release by early 2026.^[2]

Technical specifications

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The NAVAI-I3's 82 degrees of freedom represent a significant increase from the Navigator 2's 41 DOF, enabling more fluid and lifelike movement across the robot's entire body. The 2,250 TOPS of AI computing power is roughly eight times the Navigator 2's 275 TOPS, providing the computational headroom necessary for real-time sensor fusion, computer vision, natural language processing, and motor control.^[1][3] Chief scientist Xiong Rong has emphasized that reliability, not raw capability, is the binding constraint for this class of system, noting that when large models are applied to motion control, "stability is the key."^[24]

Several detailed specifications for the NAVAI-I3, including individual joint torque values, payload capacity, battery life, and specific camera or LiDAR models, have not been publicly disclosed by the manufacturer as of early 2026.^[1]

AI architecture

The center has developed a proprietary robotic "brain" system built around three integrated AI models:^[4]

• Visual Language Model (VLM): Handles scene understanding, object recognition, and human-robot interaction through natural language.
• Visual Language Action Model (VLA): Translates visual and linguistic inputs into manipulation actions, enabling the robot to perform complex dexterous tasks.
• Visual Language Navigation Model (VLN): Provides autonomous navigation capabilities in open, unstructured environments.

This VLM + VLA + VLN architecture covers the three core capabilities of interaction, manipulation, and navigation. The center has also independently developed three core technology engines: a "Real2Sim2Real" closed-loop system for generating high-quality synthetic training data to reduce AI training costs; a knowledge-driven visual-tactile fusion perception-control model for skill generalization; and a high-safety autonomous mobility system for open environments.^[4]

Design and capabilities

Locomotion

The NAVAI-I3's lower-limb mechanics feature enhanced torque that allows longer strides, greater stability, and stronger load-bearing capacity compared to its predecessors. The robot can transition seamlessly between walking and running gaits, reaching speeds of up to 9 km/h while maintaining balance on varied terrain including gravel paths and slopes. It performs dynamic movements such as bending, squatting, and light athletic drills.^[1][2][3]

This emphasis on robust locomotion distinguishes the NAVAI-I3 from many competing humanoid platforms that prioritize upper-body dexterity over lower-body agility. The design reflects the robot's intended deployment in environments where navigating uneven surfaces and maintaining stability under load are critical requirements.

Manipulation

The NAVAI-I3 inherits and improves upon the dexterous hand system developed for the Navigator series. Each hand features 15 finger joints with 6 active degrees of freedom, capable of exerting 10 newtons of fingertip force at joint speeds of 150 degrees per second. Prior iterations of the Navigator series demonstrated sub-millimeter manipulation accuracy and the ability to perform tasks such as axle-hole assembly with precision.^[1][4]

Sensors and perception

The robot is equipped with a multi-modal sensor suite that includes surround-view multi-vision cameras, depth cameras, force-torque sensors, and touch sensors. These sensors feed into the VLM + VLA + VLN brain architecture, enabling the robot to perceive its environment, understand spoken instructions, and plan actions in real time.^[1][12]

What is the NAVAI-I3 used for?

The NAVAI-I3 is aimed primarily at security, inspection, and industrial roles, and it sits within a NAVIAI product family that the center positions across four broad scenario categories: industrial manufacturing, commercial and household services, education, and training-data collection.^[26]

Security and inspection

The NAVAI-I3's primary intended use case is security patrols, facility inspection, and protective services. Its "mechanical policeman" appearance and robust locomotion make it suited for patrolling large indoor spaces such as underground parking lots, warehouses, and industrial facilities. The robot can traverse uneven terrain and operate in environments that are difficult for wheeled robots to access.^[2][3]

Industrial manufacturing

Earlier models in the Navigator series have already been deployed in real-world manufacturing settings. The NAVIAI-I2 has entered training at the Lenovo Southern Intelligent Manufacturing Base (Lenovo AI Factory) and at the Geely Automobile Lynk & Co factory.^[4][14] The center's robots have been applied to scenarios including garment manufacturing, automobile assembly, and power grid inspection.^[6]

International deployment

In a notable milestone, a NAVIAI robot developed by the center began operations at the Turkish production base of Beko, one of Europe's leading home-appliance manufacturers, in August 2025. Beko had first encountered the NAVIAI robot at the World Robot Conference in Beijing, and after months of development and testing the center shipped a customized unit together with a technical team for on-site deployment and training. The robot performs tasks including tapping touchscreens with 0.1-millimeter accuracy, opening refrigerator doors, and completing quality-inspection routines with controlled, human-like motion. After four months of on-site operation, it became one of the first Chinese autonomous humanoid robots deployed in an overseas industrial setting.^[14]

Garment manufacturing: the Jack Technology order

On April 29, 2026, the center signed a strategic-cooperation agreement with Jack Technology (SSE: 603337), one of the world's largest sewing machine manufacturers, for 2,000 customized NAVIAI humanoid robots for garment-manufacturing scenarios.^[19][25] The two companies described the deal as the first large-scale deployment of humanoid robots in the global apparel industry.^[20][25] The NAVIAI garment robots handle template-machine operations such as opening and closing sewing templates, kneading, stacking, and cutting fabric, adapting to different sizes and materials from polo shirts to denim. The center reported single-step operation times under 10 seconds, multi-piece stacking-alignment accuracy under 2 mm, and motion precision of 0.3 to 0.5 mm for cutting and sewing tasks, after the solution passed a proof-of-concept technical verification in July 2025.^[19][20] The center framed the order as a first step toward volume production, stating an ambition to scale "from 2,000 units to one million units, and then to the broader trillion-yuan-scale intelligent manufacturing ecosystem."^[25]

Is the NAVAI-I3 in production?

As of mid-2026 the NAVAI-I3 remains in pre-production, with the center reporting that potential clients have already expressed interest and that teams are "working overtime to accelerate production."^[2] Local reporting in November 2025 described the center as fast-tracking mass production to meet demand for the security-and-inspection robot.^[18] Commercially, the broader NAVIAI platform has moved from pilots to volume orders: the 2,000-unit Jack Technology contract is the family's largest to date, and the center has said it is targeting far higher volumes as it industrializes.^[25]

How does the NAVAI-I3 compare to the Navigator series?

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Competition and market context

The NAVAI-I3 exists within a rapidly expanding Chinese humanoid robot ecosystem. China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) published guidelines in late 2023 calling for humanoid robots to "realize mass production by 2025" and to become "an important new engine of economic growth" by 2027.^[15] This policy push has catalyzed the establishment of multiple government-backed humanoid robot innovation centers across the country.

China's humanoid robot innovation centers

As of 2026, China has established at least six major humanoid robot innovation centers in different regions:^[16]

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The Zhejiang center's differentiation lies in its tight integration with the region's developed private manufacturing sector and its focus on real-world industrial deployment rather than purely open-source or standardization-focused approaches.^[16] The local supply chain has expanded quickly alongside the center: by late 2025 Ningbo counted eight companies capable of full humanoid-robot production, up from three earlier in the year, and its number of supporting supply-chain enterprises grew from 25 to 88, including 18 sensor specialists; the city also launched what local media described as China's first commercial insurance product for humanoid robots.^[18]

Key competitors to the NAVAI-I3 in the Chinese humanoid robot market include Unitree (H1, G1), Agibot (A2 series), UBTECH (Walker series), and the Beijing Innovation Center's Tiangong. Internationally, it competes with platforms from Tesla (Optimus), Boston Dynamics (Atlas), Figure AI (Figure 02), and 1X Technologies (NEO).

National policy support

China's government has committed substantial resources to the humanoid robotics sector. Since January 2025, the central government launched an $8.2 billion National AI Industry Investment Fund to steer capital into frontier technologies, including embodied AI. The MIIT established a dedicated Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standardization Technical Committee in December 2025, and by March 2026 had released the first national standard system covering the humanoid robot industry's entire lifecycle.^[17] Over 40 state-funded robot training centers have been established across the country, and more than 150 humanoid robot companies now operate in China.^[17]

China's 15th Five-Year Plan framework calls for the country to "coordinate the layout of embodied intelligence training grounds, promote virtual-real fusion collaborative training and evolution, develop integrated big-brain/small-brain embodied models and algorithms, tackle key technologies in the body and core components, and accelerate the upgrade and deployment of humanoid robots."^[17]

See also

• Humanoid robot
• Humanoid robots
• Embodied AI
• SUPCON Technology
• Zhejiang University
• Boston Dynamics
• Tesla Optimus

References

1. Humanoid.press - NAVIAI-I3: High-DOF Humanoid Robot by Zhejiang Innovation Center ↩
2. China Daily Ningbo - Ningbo innovation center unveils humanoid robot NAVIAI-I3 (November 13, 2025) ↩
3. Humanoid.guide - Navai-I3 Humanoid Robot: Multi-Terrain Mobility Platform ↩
4. Gasgoo - Led by Zhejiang University Professor, Humanoid Robot Company Just Secured 450 Million Yuan in Financing ↩
5. The Robot Report - SUPCON opens new innovation center and launches Navigator Alpha humanoid robot ↩
6. Zhejiang University - Professor XIONG Rong receives IFR "Women Shaping the Future of Robotics 2026" award ↩
7. PR Newswire - Navigator Alpha Humanoid Robot: SUPCON Integrates AI with Robotics ↩
8. MarketScreener - Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center receives CNY 17.62 million from SUPCON Technology ↩
9. AHR - ZJ Humanoid Raises $65M in Pre-A Round, Backed by Industrial Giants ↩
10. Xpert Digital - The humanoid robot Navigator Alpha and the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center from Supcon ↩
11. AIBase - The Rise of Domestic Humanoid Robots: The NAVIAI 2.0 Excels in Speech, Tea Making, and Chess Playing ↩
12. Humanoid.guide - New humanoid: Navigator 2 NAVIAI ↩
13. CMRA - Overview of the latest development of the six major humanoid robot innovation centers in China ↩
14. China Daily Ningbo - Zhejiang's humanoid robot steps into global manufacturing (December 22, 2025) ↩
15. The Robot Report - China plans to mass produce humanoids by 2025 ↩
16. Gasgoo - Embodied AI's "City War": State-owned Firms Feature Dual Cores, Regional Forces Break Through ↩
17. Jamestown Foundation - Embodied Intelligence: The PRC's Whole-of-Nation Push into Robotics ↩
18. China Daily Ningbo - Ningbo companies ramp up application of humanoid robots (November 27, 2025) ↩
19. Gasgoo - Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Signs Order for 2,000 Humanoid Robots ↩
20. Sina Finance - First in the garment industry: humanoid robots deployed at scale, Zhejiang Humanoid wins a 2,000-unit order (May 9, 2026) ↩
21. Jiemian News - Valued at 1.8 billion yuan eight months after founding: the SUPCON-backed humanoid robot company ↩
22. Sina Finance - Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center completes 450 million yuan Pre-A round (January 22, 2026) ↩
23. ZOL (Zhongguancun Online) - NAVIAI hardware system launch: Zhejiang Humanoid builds a generalizable, high-precision foundation for embodied intelligence ↩
24. Techwalker - Dialogue with Xiong Rong, chief scientist of the Zhejiang Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (August 24, 2024) ↩
25. Pedaily - Zhejiang Humanoid and Jack Technology sign a 2,000-unit garment humanoid robot deal, targeting mass production (May 9, 2026) ↩
26. China.com - Full-stack in-house technology: NAVIAI humanoid robots broaden multi-scenario applications (July 2, 2026) ↩