China Seeks Comment on Robot Identification Codes Covering All Robot Categories

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology is seeking public feedback on draft interim measures for robot product identification codes, proposing a unique identity for each machine across robot categories. The official notice was published on November 6, with the consultation running through December 5.

The notice says the purpose is to establish a unified robot identity system, standardize production and support safety governance. This is a consultation on proposed measures, not an announcement that the rules have already taken effect. Companies and other interested parties can submit written feedback during the public-comment period.

According to IT Home's Chinese account of the draft, the proposed identifier has four components: a manufacturer code, a product-description code, a product-sequence code and other codes. Coding and assignment would follow the national standard referenced in the draft as GB/T 48541-2026.

The same report says that standard is itself at the consultation stage. The reference should therefore not be treated as proof that a fully implemented national coding regime is already operating. Final requirements will depend on the completed measures and the applicable standard, rather than on the draft announcement alone.

The proposed framework covers industrial, service and special-purpose robots, extending beyond the humanoid category addressed by an earlier initiative. Its intended purpose is to make an individual product identifiable across manufacturing, circulation, use and eventual retirement or recycling, instead of relying only on a model name shared by many machines.

IT Home reports that a humanoid-robot lifecycle management service platform was introduced in May under the ministry's humanoid robotics and embodied-intelligence standardization work. That platform used a 29-character, four-part identifier spanning country, enterprise, product and serial codes. The report says more than 100 companies and over 28,000 humanoid robots had been covered by May.

Those figures describe the earlier platform, not adoption of the newly proposed all-category measures. The new consultation concerns physical robot products and should also be distinguished from the AI-agent identity registry unveiled at Wuzhen this week, which addresses software-agent identity and interoperability. Both concern traceability, but they identify different kinds of systems.

SEE ALSO: An AI Agent Identity Registry Is Unveiled at Wuzhen