Cyber Mid-Autumn at Digital Trade Expo: Robots Recite Poetry, Paint, and Companion
On September 25, at the fifth Global Digital Trade Expo, a rhythmic poetry recitation drew visitors to a stop. The reciter was not a person but a humanoid robot.
It intoned a classic Mid-Autumn line: “Dew turns white tonight; the moon is bright over my hometown.” Several attendees gathered around, some filming with phones, others leaning in to try talking with it.
A thousand-year-old homesick verse emerged from a humanoid robot, and in a hall filled with giant screens, robotic arms, and AI devices, the Mid-Autumn atmosphere spread in a cyber-future way. The robot’s recitation blended ancient culture with embodied AI, a striking sight among displays of digital trade, smart hardware, and next-generation robotics. On the eve of the festival, the line felt especially fitting.
Outside the venue, people admired the moon and reunited, continuing an age-old holiday tradition. Inside, the old festival found new expressions. Many parents brought their children to the expo to spend a tech-infused cyber Mid-Autumn. Children were curious about the robots, while parents explained and took photos.
At the Dongfang Starlink·Diweier booth, two lunar AI robots moved slowly across a simulated moon surface. Seven-year-old Chen Yixing crouched before the display, eyes fixed on the robots. He looked at them, then raised his head to ask his mother: Will they really go to the moon someday?
Booth manager Chen Junrui said the two lunar AI robots will conduct preliminary exploration for building a lunar data center. They are equipped with autonomous navigation, intelligent obstacle avoidance, positioning and mapping, and in-orbit photography.
Not far away, a landing broadcast repeated: “Dear passengers, your spacecraft has arrived on Mars.” Reddish gravel, craters, and Martian surface patterns spread across the display as Chen Yixing posed for photos with a Mars coffee. The scene offered a playful contrast between the moon outside and Mars inside.
At the Xynova booth, a Pebble robot equipped with Prima 1 transformed into a painter. Its mechanical hand gripped a brush; starting the stroke, turning the wrist, and finishing in one smooth motion. In under three minutes, Hangzhou Mid-Autumn motifs such as Leifeng Pagoda and Three Pools Mirroring the Moon appeared on paper. Visitors watched the brushwork closely, surprised by the hand’s steadiness.
Staff said this is a high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hand released in August. Its fingertips have visuotactile sensors, equivalent to the tactile nerves of a human hand, allowing real-time adjustment of brush posture; the straight and curved lines it draws are neat and regular. For Mid-Autumn, the booth specially set up paintings like Three Pools Mirroring the Moon to add festive cheer.
Jiangxi merchant Bai Xiaojian received the Hangzhou scroll drawn by the robot, studied it briefly, and carefully placed it in his briefcase. Spending this Mid-Autumn at the expo and taking away a robot-painted Hangzhou makes a special cyber souvenir.
Technology keeps sending human imagination far away, but at Mid-Autumn, what people cannot let go of is reunion. At the Tuya Smart booth, a Doova family companion robot about 60 cm tall slowed footsteps. Unlike the space-facing products, it focuses on an ordinary living room and an ordinary family. The booth highlighted how robotics is moving from industrial and space applications into everyday care.
It targets solitary elderly living scenarios. Equipped with LDS lidar, a 4-microphone sound-source localization system, and visual AI posture recognition algorithms, it can move autonomously at home, detect falls, chat with elders, and link with smart home devices.
Yang Xin, from Henan and working in Hangzhou, stood before the robot for a long time. Mid-Autumn emphasizes reunion, but she could not be with her family this year. She said that after the product launches, she wants to buy one for her parents so that when she is not home, it can accompany them for her.