Chinese EV maker XPENG presented its Next-Gen IRON humanoid robot as a central element of its "Physical AI" strategy at its XPENG AI Day 2025, held Wednesday at XPENG Science Park in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province. Four Physical AI products – VLA 2.0, Robotaxi, Next-Gen IRON and ARIDGE flying systems –  were unveiled, which the company said would be mass produced.

Next-Gen IRON features an "extreme anthropomorphism" design with a humanoid spine, bionic muscles and fully covered flexible skin. The robot supports 82 degrees of freedom across the body and the hand with 22 degrees of freedom, using a small harmonic joint to reach a 1:1 hand size. XPENG demonstrated catwalk-like walking and natural posture during the presentation.

On the software side, XPENG described Next-Gen IRON as built on a multi-model stack, "VLT + VLA + VLM," that forms its reasoning and action framework. XPENG said the robot carries a first-generation physical-world large model and runs on three in-house developed Turing AI chips, with an effective on-board computing power of 3,000 TOPS. The company said this setup supports conversation, walking and interaction.

XPENG also pointed to energy and safety features; the robot uses all-solid-state batteries for lighter weight and higher energy density, and the firm said it has added a fourth safety rule to prevent human privacy data from leaving the device. XPENG acknowledged challenges in training data and mass production and said it has established an embodied intelligence data factory in Guangzhou to help address data needs.

For initial deployment, XPENG said Next-Gen IRON will focus on commercial service scenarios such as guided tours, shopping assistance and traffic diversion rather than immediate household or factory use. The company Baosteel Stock as an ecosystem partner for industrial trials and said it aims for large-scale production of advanced humanoid robots by the end of 2026.

The robot launch was presented alongside VLA 2.0, described as a vision-to-action large model for vehicles and robots, and an announcement of three Robotaxi models planned for 2026, outlining XPENG's wider roadmap linking autonomous driving, humanoid robots and low-altitude flying systems within a single Physical AI ecosystem.

(Cover: He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of XPENG, unveils the Next-Gen IRON humanoid robot during XPENG AI Day 2025 held in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, November 5, 2025. /VCG)