China's Intelligent Breeding Robot 'Jier' Evolves to 2.0: From Flower to Field

The story of a seed changing the world is familiar to Chinese people. Now, a pair of robotic arms is attempting to rewrite that narrative. At the 33rd China Beijing Seed Industry Conference on September 4, 2026, the team led by Xu Chao at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, unveiled the world's first humanoid embodied intelligent breeding robot, 'Jier 2.0'.

This robot, with 100% domestically produced components, navigates autonomously through tomato flowers and completes pollination using dual arms in under 10 seconds.

01 Redesigning the Flower Before the Robot The core breakthrough of Jier lies in a strategy called 'crop-robot co-design.' Traditionally, hybrid pollination heavily relies on manual labor. In tomatoes, hybrids account for over 90% of commercial varieties, but the closed flower shape has forced global breeding to remain manual, with labor costs exceeding 25% of total breeding costs.

The team led by Xu Chao first reshaped the flower through gene editing: causing stamens to naturally abort and the stigma to protrude, effectively creating a customized 'interface' for robots. This 'biotechnology foundation' approach exposes the pinhead-sized stigma that was previously wrapped in petals, providing operational space for mechanical arms. Based on this, the robot uses AI vision to recognize, precisely locate, and complete pollination. Stigma recognition accuracy has improved from 85% in the first generation to 92.8%.

02 From Lab to Industrial Frontline In August 2025, related achievements of Jier were published in the international academic journal Cell. At that time, Xu Chao, the corresponding author, stated that this research pioneered an intelligent breeding model combining 'biotechnology foundation, AI empowerment, and robotic labor,' marking China's first completion of a closed-loop technology system for intelligent robotic breeding.

Less than a year later, the 2.0 version upgraded from a flexible single arm to a dual-arm system, enhancing adaptability. At the demonstration, Jier held a pollen tube in its right hand and a pollination brush in its left, with one dip providing enough pollen for approximately 50 pollinations. It can recognize flowers, avoid leaves, and operate autonomously in high or low temperatures, during day or night. Xu Chao noted that hybrid pollination is repetitive labor, requiring workers to bend over for long periods within short windows, whereas the robot can work after charging, effectively reducing labor intensity.

03 Beyond Tomatoes: From Soybeans to Outer Space The technology has also completed proof-of-concept in soybean breeding, achieving the first rapid creation of structural male-sterile soybean lines. The paper's authors also foresaw further applications: if robots can adapt to closed environments, this model could provide breeding solutions for greenhouses on the Moon or Mars in the future.

Currently, Jier 2.0 targets the hybrid pollination step, which is the most labor-intensive in breeding. In surveys by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, authorities required the team to address national needs, 'do agricultural research that is useful and leading,' and expand the technology to more food and cash crops. When robots can understand every flower, breeding has the potential to shift from 'experience-based agriculture' to 'precision industry.'