Robot Era’s STAR 1: Running at 6 Meters per Second! This Tsinghua-Backed Humanoid Robot Aims to Become the Next-Gen “Industrial Worker”
From April 24 to 26, 2025, at the Fair Plus 2025 Robotics Expo held at Shenzhen Futian Convention and Exhibition Center, a humanoid robot named STAR 1 drew significant attention from visitors. It was developed by Beijing Robot Era Technology Co., Ltd., a startup founded in August 2023. In just over a year, the company has made a name for itself in the robotics industry—both in China and abroad—thanks to its three core innovations: a dexterous robotic hand, a humanoid robot system, and a self-developed large model.
Robot Era was founded under the leadership of Professor Chen Jianyu from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University. It is the only company within the Tsinghua Holdings ecosystem solely focused on humanoid robots. During the exhibition, Chen Lu, Editor-in-Chief of China ExportSemi, interviewed Ku Delong, Head of Business Development at Robot Era. In the interview video titled Robot Era Debuts at Fair Plus 2025: Star 1 Unleashes Industrial-Grade Potential, Ku shared the company’s ambition:
“We’re not just building robots that look like humans, but intelligent labor that can work like or even outperform humans.”
Picture: Ku Delong, the head of Robot Era, was interviewed by Chen Lu, editor-in-chief of China Exportsemi
I. Dexterous Hands: End-Effector Intelligence in the AI Era
The dexterous hand is key for humanoid robots to interact with the physical world. Robot Era has adopted a fully actuated direct-drive design—one of the most sophisticated and technically demanding routes in the field. Each joint is powered by an independent hollow-cup motor, offering high precision, rapid responsiveness, and controllable force output.
“This structure enables a wider range of operations that are more humanlike and easier to train and generalize,” said Ku Delong.
Robot Era’s robotic hand has already been deployed in top research platforms, including national key laboratories, Tsinghua University, and Beihang University. The company has also established technical exchange and collaboration channels with international tech giants such as Apple, Google, and Microsoft.
Yet, Robot Era doesn’t see the robotic hand as a standalone product. Instead, it’s designed as an intelligent extension of the robot’s capabilities. By combining visual perception and large model comprehension, the dexterous hand is capable of learning and adapting to unstructured environments—successfully handling tasks like grasping soft bags or assembling precision components.
II. STAR 1: A Humanoid Robot that Runs 6 m/s
STAR 1 is classified as an L3-level large-scale humanoid robot, meaning it integrates mobility, perception, understanding, decision-making, and execution into a single intelligent system.
It boasts 55 degrees of freedom, including 24 in the two dexterous hands, allowing it to walk, jump, and turn fluidly. With a top tested running speed of 6 meters per second, Star 1 is ahead of global benchmarks and far exceeds industry norms.
At the heart of Star 1 is Robot Era’s proprietary “Giant Body Model” system. This system integrates multi-modal sensing, motion control, semantic understanding, and reinforcement learning. It allows the robot to interact with humans through natural speech, perceive environmental changes, autonomously plan paths, and execute tasks. The model, independently developed by Robot Era, also incorporates voice model advancements from partners like iFlytek and AISpeech, resulting in powerful end-to-end intelligent task execution.
Crucially, STAR 1 is not merely a showcase of flashy capabilities. It was built from the ground up with real-world applications in mind. It has already completed adaptive testing on challenging terrain—including snow, sand, and stairs—and demonstrated stable, reliable performance.
Picture: Beijing Robot Era Technology Co., Ltd. humanoid robot Staer1 attracted everyone's attention at the Fair plus 2025 exhibition
III. More Than a Tech Demo—Built to Work
“We’re not here to show off a demo—we’re here to create a new workforce,” Ku Delong emphasized. From day one, the team was guided by two core principles: robots must be capable of performing real industrial tasks, and their structural design must support long-term maintainability and scalability for mass deployment.
Star 1 was not assembled from expensive, off-the-shelf components. The entire system—control units, sensors, actuators—was developed in-house to support future large-scale manufacturing.
Robot Era’s first applications will target high-end manufacturing environments such as 3C product assembly and automotive line-side logistics. The robot will then expand into lighter-duty areas such as security, inspection, and domestic services. The company is currently working with multiple manufacturing partners to validate real-world use cases, with pilot projects expected to launch later this year.
IV. Independent R&D and Full-Stack System Integration
Unlike many players in the humanoid robot space who rely heavily on open-source platforms and piecemeal assembly, Robot Era has taken a fully integrated, in-house R&D approach. Its proprietary hardware, software, and model architecture cover everything from motion control, embedded controllers, and sensor fusion, to environmental perception and large-model orchestration.
“We aim to build a truly general, perceptive, and deployable technology stack—not just rely on a single-use-case success,” Ku noted. This full-stack strategy, while demanding, has created deep technical barriers and positioned the company for long-term evolution.
V. Vision: Making Robots the Next-Gen Blue-Collar Workforce
In an industry plagued by excessive hype, intense competition, and slow technology deployment, Robot Era remains grounded and focused.
“Our mission is threefold: let dexterous hands replace human hands, humanoid robots replace human bodies, and large models replace human brains,” Ku stated. “The ultimate goal is to get robots into workshops and on the job.”
Moving forward, the company will continue to iterate on both the dexterous hand and STAR 1, with the goal of achieving scaled pilot deployment by 2025, and commercial rollout within the next three years.
While the road ahead is challenging, Robot Era is moving with confidence and clarity—eschewing buzz for substance, and paving a practical path for Chinese humanoid robots to enter the global industrial supply chain.
#FairPlus2025 Special Report#
This article is an original publication by the Yeehai Global Institute / China Exportsemi. Reproduction, excerpts, or redistribution without authorization is prohibited. For reprint or partnership inquiries, please contact the editorial team at china.exportsemi@ehaitech.com.
