China is looking to give every humanoid manufactured in the country a digital identity, as it seeks promote growth in the rapidly growing sector through establishing industry standards and strengthening regulation.

The country launched a national initiative on Friday, dubbed the Humanoid Full Lifecycle Management Service Platform, to assign human-shaped and artificial intelligence-driven bipedal robots unique codes. The numbers will then be used to track the robots throughout their lifecycle, from production through to recycling, according to a report by the country’s state broadcaster CCTV.

The programme is led by the Humanoid Robotics and Embodied Intelligence Standardization (HEIS) committee under China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology.

Authorities said the system is designed to ensure products can be traced in order to monitor for risks, as China pushes to regulate the fast-developing industry, according to the CCTV report.

China also released guidelines for lifecycle management of humanoids and instructions for how the ID should be used.

The guidelines apply to all stakeholders across the humanoid industry and supply chain, including manufacturers, service providers, sellers, users and recycle facilities, Yu Xiuming, deputy head at the China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI) said.