China’s Humanoid Robots Can Sort 1,200 Parcels an Hour

China’s newest warehouse worker doesn't need a break between parcels.

Humanoid robots are now sorting packages at China Post’s Jianggao logistics site in Guangzhou, where each machine is reportedly capable of processing up to 1,200 parcels an hour. The rollout places humanoids inside one of the world’s most demanding logistics environments, where small gains in speed and consistency can ripple across millions of daily shipments.

Parcel sorting sounds boring until the job is multiplied across millions of packages a day.

Where millions of parcels move every day

The hourly figure becomes more striking when stretched across a full day. A single humanoid could theoretically handle 28,800 parcels in 24 hours, assuming the pace held without interruption.

Guangzhou gives the robots a massive floor to work in. According to Chinese state media, the postal center processes an average of 6.5 million mail items a day, with peak volume exceeding 10 million.

Images from the Jianggao logistics site show robotic arms sorting parcels and unmanned forklifts carrying loads through the facility. The humanoids are one part of a larger automated system built to keep parcels moving at scale.

A robot does not need to transform an entire warehouse to matter in an operation like that. Faster handoffs and steadier sorting can add up quickly when millions of items are traveling through the same network every day.

RobotEra’s M7 brings hands and vision to the line

Parcel sorting requires a specific kind of robot skill. The machine has to recognize a package, handle it cleanly, and keep pace with the line.

RobotEra said the M7 supports “real-world tasks such as intelligent sorting, scanning, assembly, and high-quality data collection for foundation model training.” The upper-body robot pairs dexterous hands with perception tools that help it judge where an item is and how to grab it.

Its 2.1-meter operating space suits fixed-line work, where the same motion has to happen again and again without slowing the rest of the system.

Sorting robots now have to last the shift

Recently, Figure AI demoed humanoid robots working nonstop and handling over tens of thousands of packages in a warehouse-style sorting run. China Post’s rollout adds to the same picture, with humanoids moving into the repetitive work that keeps modern logistics running.

Parcel sorting has usually depended on people and fixed automation working side by side. Humanoid robots are now being tested in the space between the two, taking on hands-on package handling without requiring every part of the job to be rebuilt around a traditional machine.

If humanoids can sort parcels at this pace and keep working through long shifts, factory managers may start doing a different kind of math. 

Every hour handled by a machine changes the headcount calculation and brings the same question closer to the factory floor. If this keeps up, how many humans will factories still need when machines can handle the repetitive work without stopping?

XPENG’s robot plans show automakers pushing humanoids beyond stage demos and into customer-facing work.