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China Merchants Group's Shizishan AI Lab debuts at WRC 2026 with ICRA-winning clothes-folding robot
China Merchants Group's Shizishan AI Lab made its public debut at WRC 2026, showcasing full-stack self-developed robotics built to tackle industry-grade flexible manipulation challenges. Its real-machine clothes-folding system previously won the championship at ICRA, highlighting progress on deformable-object manipulation.
China Merchants Group's Shizishan (Lion Mountain) AI Lab made its public debut at WRC 2026, the World Robot Conference, presenting a full-stack self-developed robotics approach built around industry-grade flexible manipulation challenges.
The lab's headline achievement is a real-machine clothes-folding system that won the championship at ICRA, a top academic conference in robotics and automation, performing the folding task with actual hardware rather than simulation.
Folding clothes looks mundane but is a recognized hard problem in robotics: garments are soft, deformable objects with no fixed shape and difficult modeling, demanding strong perception, planning, and control. Stable real-machine folding therefore signals complete engineering capability in deformable-object manipulation.
The lab emphasizes a full-stack self-developed route, meaning core algorithms and system integration are built in-house rather than assembled from external solutions, a path that can ease transfer into concrete industrial scenarios.
Flexible manipulation remains one of the least automated links in manufacturing, with soft-material handling needed across many industries. If the technology moves from competition stages to production lines, it could open new automation markets.
What to watch next: whether the lab's technology can move from the lab and competition floor to real industrial lines, and whether its WRC 2026 demos are followed by disclosed performance metrics or partnership announcements.
Why it matters
Flexible manipulation is a long-standing robotics bottleneck; if the ICRA-winning clothes-folding capability reaches production lines, it could open new automation opportunities in soft-material industries.
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