In a first, a humanoidnamed Xeuba01, developed by China has joined the PhD programme at the Shanghai Theatre Academy.
The humanoid has ben developed by the University of Shanghai for Science Science and Technology in partnership with DroidUp Robotics. According to South China Morning Post, Xueba01 has been accepted into a 4-year PhD programme.
The humanoid’s application for the doctoral programme was accepted during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on July 27. Xeuba01 will be pursuing a doctorate in Drama and Film focusing on Chinese opera.
It has been given a student ID Shanghai artist and professor Yang Qingqing, will mentor the bot. Xeuba01 is expected to arrive on campus on September 14, where he will attend classes on stage performance, scriptwriting, and set design, as well as technical topics such as motion control and language generation.
The PhD candidate is 1.75 meters tall with a face of a man and weighs 30 kg. He can physically interact with students.
Some people reacted with scepticism to the humanoid’s admission into the doctoral programme and said “Now robots are replacing students.”
@mikekalilmfg said, “Now robots are replacing students. Meet Xueba 01, China’s first AI robot to enter a PHD program. Shanghai-based DroidUp introduced the hyper-realistic android at the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), which featured more than 60 distinct humanoid robot models from about 80 companies.
@MatTrang911 said, “Chinese humanoid robot Xueba 01 has entered the graduate school of drama and film studies at Shanghai University. It will receive a student card, undergo training and write a dissertation. Earlier, the previous version of the robot won bronze at the robo-marathon”