The World Robotic Convention opened in Beijing on August 19, drawing greater than 300 home companies displaying over 2,000 reveals and launching upwards of 150 new merchandise, in keeping with figures by the organisers.
The five-day occasion is China’s greatest annual showcase for a sector wherein the nation now dominates manufacturing, and wherein, certainly one of its best-known makers pulled off one of the talked-about expertise listings of the yr.
Shares in Unitree Robotics, the Hangzhou-based agency based in 2016 by Wang Xingxing, soared as a lot as 629% of their buying and selling debut on the Shanghai Inventory Trade’s Star Market on Wednesday. An preliminary public providing had raised round 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million) and was greater than 8,000 occasions oversubscribed by retail buyers, Reuters reported.
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Priced at 150.80 yuan a share, the inventory closed 460% increased at 845 yuan on debut day, in keeping with the Related Press. It fell 11% the following day as buyers took the earnings.
Unitree is the primary mainland-listed humanoid robotic maker, in a sector Chinese language leaders have designated a nationwide growth precedence. What Beijing has been displaying off within the capital, and what the market has been shopping for into, are two variations of the identical wager: that China’s lead in humanoid manufacturing will translate right into a lead within the machines that come after them.
However the trade’s most carefully watched builder used the identical convention to warning that it’s going to not occur quickly.
China’s manufacturing edge
A Chinese language humanoid trade physique reported on Thursday that the nation delivered greater than 40,000 humanoid robots within the first half of 2026, accounting for 97% of world shipments, Reuters stated. Expertise analysis agency IDC places China’s share at 82%. Counterpoint Analysis’s Ethan Qi instructed AFP the determine was above 90%.
The dimensions displays an extended state-backed push. Beijing has named robotics a precedence sector in its final two five-year plans and has constructed out a element provide chain that shares many options with the nation’s electric-vehicle trade — an ecosystem that retains unit prices down and lets makers transfer shortly from prototype to quantity.
China’s benefit lies in “manufacturing scale, provide chain integration and price competitiveness”, Qi stated, whereas the US was “a lot stronger” on software program and cutting-edge analysis.
For 2026 as an entire, JPMorgan expects world humanoid shipments to succeed in 60,000 models, up from 18,000 in 2025, and to rise to 1.75 million by 2030, in keeping with Bloomberg. The financial institution sees China accounting for greater than half of world demand.
Unitree because the concentrated wager
Unitree is the clearest expression of that confidence. The corporate shipped greater than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, rating first globally by shipments, and reported income of round 1.7 billion yuan ($250 million) for the yr, primarily from gross sales of its humanoids and quadruped “robotic canine”, the AP reported.
Greater than 40% of that income got here from abroad markets, and the US accounted for roughly 13% final yr, the corporate stated.
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Unitree plans to spend its IPO proceeds on growing what the trade calls the humanoid “mind” — embodied synthetic intelligence that lets a robotic interpret and act on its environment — together with superior analysis and manufacturing capability.
The shift issues as a result of Unitree’s world popularity was constructed largely on the bodily dexterity of its robots, and the pivot displays the place the corporate now sees the trade’s motion.
Washington’s counter
In July, the US Federal Communications Fee (FCC) restricted new gear authorisations for foreign-made superior humanoid and quadruped robots, citing nationwide safety issues. It isn’t a straight import ban; beforehand authorised fashions may nonetheless be offered, however new variations can not enter the American market.
Unitree has cautioned that the ruling may hit future US gross sales, and that Washington might develop the restrictions.
IDC estimated that beneath its worst-case state of affairs for the American measures, US humanoid gross sales in 2030 would are available in 58% under the agency’s prior baseline forecast.
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Chinese language makers have signalled they’ll look elsewhere.
Omdia’s Lian Jye Su instructed the AP that Chinese language companies had been prone to goal main markets outdoors the US, corresponding to Europe. Lumos Robotics, a Suzhou- and Shenzhen-based startup backed by Japan’s Mitsubishi Electrical, stated it deliberate an abroad push subsequent yr — initially West Asia and Europe, with Japan and South Korea additionally into consideration.
The subsequent race, and what’s nonetheless lacking
On the convention’s principal discussion board on Thursday, Wang Xingxing’s pitch on the trade’s future, made a day after Unitree’s blockbuster itemizing, was strikingly cautious.
“We’re marching in the direction of a ‘ChatGPT second’ in embodied intelligence,” Wang instructed the viewers, invoking the late-2022 breakthrough second for big language fashions.
However the tipping level, as he outlined it, stays distant. Robots would want to finish “roughly 80% of duties efficiently by way of voice or textual content instructions” when positioned in an unfamiliar family, an inflection he stated would set off “explosive progress” within the sector.
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That tipping level is 2 to a few years away in an optimistic state of affairs, and 5 to 10 years on the periphery, Wang stated.
Wang additionally stated that robots at the moment carry out effectively in take a look at situations however “execution collapses as soon as objects or environment shift even barely”, leaving machines slower than human employees and restricted within the vary of duties they will deal with.
Unitree, he stated, was “lagging behind” within the real-world software of bodily AI fashions and had made world fashions — the AI simulation methods that permit a robotic navigate the bodily world — its largest funding by capital and manpower, Reuters reported.
Georg Stieler, head of automation on the robotics consultancy Stieler, stated Wang’s message stood in distinction to the temper outdoors. “Relative to the temper round World Robotic Convention and Unitree’s spectacular IPO, Wang Xingxing was notably sober about present capabilities,” Stieler stated.
Wang He, founding father of Chinese language robotics startup Galbot, stated he anticipated the “ChatGPT second” to reach by 2028 — defining it as the purpose when robots can carry out 70% to 80% of on a regular basis duties with out specialised coaching.
Mass deployment of robots might want to cross one other hurdle – unit economics.
Chinese language brokerage Guotai Securities estimates that an industrial humanoid would want to price about 160,000 yuan, together with upkeep, to pay for itself inside two years, in contrast with a employee incomes 80,000 yuan a yr. In follow, in keeping with Berlin-based think-tank Merics, such robots sometimes price between 300,000 and 500,000 yuan.
Stieler estimated that fifty% to 70% of the humanoids produced this yr may find yourself in “knowledge factories” — accumulating coaching knowledge quite than performing productive work for paying prospects.
“The valuation that goes into all these corporations relies on the truth that these robots will grow to be normal function, human-like sooner or later. Failing to ship that can be a really large blow,” Omdia’s Su instructed AFP.
A industrial take a look at begins this weekend
A public take a look at of this hole will start later within the week. On Saturday, the World Humanoid Robotic Video games, working from August 22 to 26 in Beijing, will mix the acquainted spectacle occasions — races, soccer, combating — with a rising slate of competitions constructed round precise work. It will embrace packing and warehousing, industrial meeting and materials feeding, retail and workplace providers, electric-vehicle charging, and dexterous duties corresponding to connecting cables and utilizing instruments.
Not like a dash or a dance routine, such duties take a look at whether or not robots can determine unfamiliar objects, manipulate them repeatedly, get better from errors and full jobs with out engineers stepping in.
“The subsequent part of the trade is much less about demonstrating {that a} robotic can stroll and extra about demonstrating that it may possibly carry out economically helpful duties,” Kangyuxiao Li, an fairness analyst at Morningstar, stated.
