“Womb-Bot” Futures: Gestating Life in the Age of Algorithmic Kinship
At the recent 2025 World Robot Conference in Beijing, China’s Kaiwa Technology announced a prototype humanoid robot equipped with a synthetic womb, capable of gestating human embryos from implantation to birth.[i] While synthetic wombs and the concept of ectogenesis have circulated in scientific and feminist discourse for decades, what sets the this prototype apart is not the idea of gestation outside the body, but the unprecedented leap toward a humanoid machine carrying a pregnancy to full term, autonomously and algorithmically. Dubbed the “Womb-Bot,” this life-sized machine mimics the conditions of natural pregnancy using artificial amniotic fluid, nutrient delivery systems, and AI-driven developmental monitoring. Priced at under 100,000 yuan (approximately USD 13,900), it promises a future where gestation is no longer biological, but programmable, envisioning a future where kinship is coded, care is automated, and reproduction becomes a site of algorithmic governance.
The Womb-Bot builds on earlier research, including the 2017 “biobag” study at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where premature lambs were sustained in a fluid-filled sac for several weeks.[ii] That experiment marked the beginning of partial ectogenesis (gestation outside the body), but Kaiwa’s robot aims for full-term artificial pregnancy. Founder Dr. Zhang Qifeng claims the technology is “mature” in lab settings and has submitted legislative proposals in Guangdong Province.[iii] The robot is not merely an incubator, he insists, but a gestational surrogate capable of replicating the entire reproductive process.
This development raises urgent questions about reproductive governance, ie how states, institutions, and markets regulate reproductive behaviour through law, policy, moral discourse, and economic incentives.[iv] In China, this has included coercive population control, followed by pronatalist policies aimed at reversing demographic decline. The Womb-Bot introduces a new layer: reproduction without bodies. Who becomes the legal parent of a child gestated by a machine? What happens in cases of developmental error or system failure? And how do we regulate a process that bypasses the human altogether?
In China, the legal terrain surrounding artificial reproduction is tightly regulated and presents significant hurdles for Kaiwa Technology’s ambitions. Commercial surrogacy is explicitly banned, and human embryo research is restricted to a 14-day development limit under national bioethics guidelines.[v] While in vitro fertilization (IVF) is permitted, it is subject to strict licensing and oversight,[vi] and reproductive technologies outside traditional family structures remain legally ambiguous.[vii] For Kaiwa’s Womb-Bot to gestate a foetus to full term, it would require a fundamental redefinition of what constitutes lawful gestation and embryo handling. The company has reportedly submitted policy proposals to provincial authorities in Guangdong and held closed-door discussions to explore legislative pathways. These efforts suggest a strategic attempt to carve out regulatory exceptions or pilot zones, potentially positioning synthetic gestation as a solution to China’s rising infertility rates and declining birth rate.[viii] Yet without national legal reform, the Womb-Bot remains in a grey zone: scientifically plausible, commercially enticing, but legally unviable.
Globally, the legal landscape for synthetic gestation is also fragmented and largely anticipatory, from both the AI or reproduction perspectives. The EU Artificial Intelligence Act[ix] proposes risk-based regulation for AI systems, with healthcare and biometric applications classified as “high-risk.” The UK’s Pro-Innovation Approach to AI Regulation[x], outlines a sector-specific, principles-based approach, emphasizing innovation over prescriptive control. The Council of Europe’s AI Convention[xi] and the Oviedo Convention[xii] affirm human dignity, informed consent, and the primacy of human welfare in biomedical innovation. Their principles – bodily integrity, transparency, and ethical oversight; offer a normative lens through which to evaluate emerging reproductive technologies – but none of these frameworks explicitly address artificial wombs or humanoid gestation, nor could they be interpreted to address these.
The Oviedo Convention, particularly, is among the most significant international instruments governing biomedical ethics and is the only legally binding international treaty on bioethics, adopted by the Council of Europe and ratified by over 30 countries. The Convention sets out foundational principles for the protection of human dignity in the face of biomedical advances. It affirms that the interests and welfare of the human being shall prevail over the sole interest of science or society (Article 2), and prohibits interventions aimed at creating genetically modified human beings (Article 13). While the Convention does not explicitly address artificial wombs or synthetic gestation, its emphasis on informed consent, bodily integrity, and non-commercialization of the human body provides a normative anchor for evaluating emerging reproductive technologies. However, we must also bear in mind that it was drafted in a pre-ectogenesis era. It assumes that gestation occurs within a human body. There is no language addressing synthetic environments or robotic surrogacy. As such, artificial wombs of this nature fall into a legal grey zone, neither clearly permitted nor explicitly prohibited. Hence, in the context of humanoid gestation, the Oviedo Convention invites scrutiny of whether such systems respect the dignity of both the gestated child and the reproductive process itself.
In the UK, reproductive law is shaped by two foundational statutes: the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 (as amended in 2008),[xiii] and the Abortion Act 1967.[xiv] The HFE Act established the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the first regulatory body of its kind, and created a legal framework for assisted reproduction, embryo storage, and research. It defines an embryo as a fertilized egg up to the appearance of a two-cell zygote, and regulates its use with strict licensing and consent protocols. The 2008 amendments expanded access to fertility treatment for same-sex couples and clarified legal parenthood in non-traditional family structures.
The Abortion Act, meanwhile, governs the conditions under which pregnancy may be lawfully terminated. It requires the approval of two medical practitioners and sets a 24-week gestational limit, with exceptions for serious risk to the mother or foetal abnormality. While synthetic gestation may not fall neatly within the scope of these laws, it raises adjacent questions: If gestation occurs outside the body, does the concept of abortion still apply? What legal protections exist for embryos in artificial environments? And how do we reconcile the rights of the gestated child with the absence of a gestational parent?
Feminist thinkers have long grappled with the implications of ectogenesis. Shulamith Firestone envisioned artificial wombs as a tool to liberate women from the “tyranny of reproduction.”[xv] More recently, scholars like Claire Horn have argued that artificial wombs could expand reproductive choice and mitigate health risks, but only if designed with justice in mind.[xvi] A reproductive justice lens reminds us that technology is never neutral. It reflects the values of its creators and the power structures in which it is embedded. Artificial wombs could empower those excluded from traditional reproduction - or they could also reinforce existing inequalities through surveillance, stratification, and commodification.
The Womb-Bot doesn’t only replicate biology; it also reimagines intimacy. In natural pregnancy, gestation is a relational process: a dance of hormones, emotions, and embodied care. In synthetic gestation, that dance is choreographed by code. This shift invites us to rethink kinship itself. What does it mean to be born of a machine? Can care be automated? And how do we preserve the emotional, ethical, and cultural dimensions of reproduction in an age of algorithmic life? Furthermore, beneath the promise of innovation lies a deeper concern: the politics of access. Who will be permitted, or able to use synthetic gestation technologies? Will Womb-Bots be marketed as elite reproductive solutions for the wealthy, or as state-sponsored tools to boost birth rates in aging societies? The potential for surveillance is equally troubling. AI-driven gestation involves continuous biometric monitoring, data collection, and algorithmic decision-making. In jurisdictions with weak data protection laws or opaque oversight, this could lead to the profiling of embryos, predictive screening, or even selective termination based on algorithmic bias. Stratified reproduction, where access to safe, dignified gestation is determined by class, race, or citizenship, may be exacerbated, not resolved, by the arrival of synthetic wombs of this nature.
The Womb-Bot is not simply a technological artifact. It is a philosophical rupture that reflects our hopes, fears, and contradictions about reproduction, autonomy, and the future of humanity. As synthetic gestation moves from prototype to policy, we must ask not just what is possible, but what is permissible. We need legal frameworks that honour ambiguity, ethical oversight that resists commodification, and cultural narratives that preserve the richness of human connection. The future of reproduction is now no longer simply biological: it is also deeply political, programmable, and profoundly human.
[i] Mai Tao, “Chinese Company Developing Humanoid Robot to Give Birth: Breakthrough or Dystopian Nightmare?,” Robotics & Automation News, August 18, 2025, https://roboticsandautomationnews.com/2025/08/18/chinese-company-developing-humanoid-robot-to-give-birth-breakthrough-or-dystopian-nightmare/93760/.
[ii] Emily A. Partridge et al., “An Extra-Uterine System to Physiologically Support the Extreme Premature Lamb,” Nature Communications 8, no. 1 (2017): 15112, https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms15112.
[iii] Jijo Malayil, “China Firm Plans World’s First Pregnancy Humanoid Robot Using Artificial Womb,” MSN News, August 20, 2025, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/china-firm-plans-world-s-first-pregnancy-humanoid-robot-using-artificial-womb/ar-AA1KAFab.
[iv] Lynn M. Morgan and Elizabeth F. S. Roberts, “Reproductive Governance in Latin America,” Anthropology & Medicine 19, no. 2 (2012): 241–54, https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2012.675046.
[v] Yang Xue and Lijun Shang, “Are We Ready for the Revision of the 14-Day Rule? Implications from Chinese Legislations Guiding Human Embryo and Embryoid Research,” Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology 10 (October 2022), https://doi.org/10.3389/fcell.2022.1016988.
[vi] Jie Qiao and Huai L. Feng, “Assisted Reproductive Technology in China: Compliance and Non-Compliance,” Translational Pediatrics 3, no. 2 (2014): 91–97, https://doi.org/10.3978/j.issn.2224-4336.2014.01.06.
[vii] Xiaorong Gu, “‘You Are Not Young Anymore!’: Gender, Age and the Politics of Reproduction in Post-Reform China,” Asian Bioethics Review 13, no. 1 (2021): 57–76, https://doi.org/10.1007/s41649-020-00157-9.
[viii] Ming Gao, “What Will It Take for China to Arrest Its Declining Birth Rate?,” The Conversation, August 1, 2025, https://doi.org/10.64628/AB.eafmjjvq4.
[ix] Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 Laying down Harmonised Rules on Artificial Intelligence and Amending Regulations (EC) No 300/2008, (EU) No 167/2013, (EU) No 168/2013, (EU) 2018/858, (EU) 2018/1139 and (EU) 2019/2144 and Directives 2014/90/EU, (EU) 2016/797 and (EU) 2020/1828 (Artificial Intelligence Act) (Text with EEA Relevance) (2024). http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1689/oj/eng.
[x] DSIT, “A Pro-Innovation Approach to AI Regulation,” GOV.UK, 2023, https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ai-regulation-a-pro-innovation-approach/white-paper.
[xi] Conseil de l’Europe, Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, CETS225 (2024). https://rm.coe.int/1680afae3c.
[xii] Conseil de l’Europe, Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Dignity of the Human Being with Regard to the Application of Biology and Medicine: Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Editions du Conseil de l’Europe, 1997), http://193.205.211.30/lawtech/images/lawtech/law/convenzioneoviedo.pdf.
[xiii] Strategy and Information Directorate Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, “The HFE Act (and Other Legislation) - HFEA,” accessed May 8, 2017, http://www.hfea.gov.uk/134.html.
[xiv] Expert Participation, “Abortion Act 1967,” Text, Statute Law Database, accessed August 27, 2025, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/contents.
[xv] Shulamith Firestone, The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution (William Morrow and Company Inc, 1970), https://teoriaevolutiva.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/firestone-shulamith-dialectic-sex-case-feminist-revolution.pdf.
[xvi] Claire Horn, “Ectogenesis, Inequality, and Coercion: A Reproductive Justice-Informed Analysis of the Impact of Artificial Wombs,” BioSocieties 18, no. 3 (2023): 523–44, https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-022-00279-3.
