China’s robots have caught the world’s attention with kung fu flips at the nationally televised Spring Festival Gala, while Chinese phone maker Honor will unveil its first humanoid robot at MWC in Spain.
Robots have been marked as a priority under the country’s “Made in China 2025” plan, although initially the focus was on automated factory machines, rather than humanoids. Now, rapid advances in multimodal AI are accelerating so-called hybrid AI — autonomous machines operating in the real world — that officials say could help end labor shortages and drive productivity gains.
At this early stage of humanoid robot development, Chinese companies are outpacing their US rivals in both speed and volume, said Selina Xu, who leads China and AI policy in Eric Schmidt’s office.
“China has a strong hardware supply chain — a large part of which is made up of the EV sector, from sensors to batteries — and the strongest manufacturing base in the world, which allows companies to write much faster than Western competitors,” Xu told TechCrunch.
As a result, not only are Chinese robots cheaper but companies can also release new models faster, Xu noted, adding that top Chinese player Unitree shipped about 36 times more units last year than US rivals Figure and Tesla.
Global robot shipments totaled 13,317 units last year, according to a Forbes report released last month. That’s a small industry base that is expected to nearly double annually and reach 2.6 million units by 2035. (Still, the numbers should be viewed with caution. The report notes that it’s unclear how many units represent commercial sales versus demo models or pilot shipments, which underscores the early stage of the industry.)
The leading robot manufacturers in 2025 were led by China’s Agibot and Unitree, followed by UBTech, Leju Robotics, Engine AI, and Fourier Intelligence, underscoring Beijing’s early dominance in the field.
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The big shift recently has been from “demo-driven excitement” to “performance-driven discovery,” Yuli Zhao, Galbot’s chief strategy officer, told TechCrunch. Galbot’s humanoid robot, G1, appeared at the Spring Festival Gala, China’s annual televised, month-long New Year’s Eve show, along with robots from Unitree Robotics, Noetix, and MagicLab.
“Many customers are asking: Can a robot work stably in real environments and actually remove work from people’s plates? That effective traction is being strengthened in China because the policy and industrial strategy encourage the development of automation, and the manufacturing ecosystem makes the repetition very fast,” said Zhao.
While increased funding toward humanoid startups has “really accelerated” the pace of progress, “long-term adoption comes when you can demonstrate reliable and repeatable value in manufacturing or service operations, not just a one-off show,” Zhao said.
Still, investment is useful and Chinese robot makers are protecting it. Last year Unitree was valued at $3 billion after closing its Series C, with aspirations to raise as much as $7 billion in an upcoming IPO. Meanwhile, Galbot has raised more than $300 million in new funding, reportedly pushing its valuation to $3 billion, one of the largest investments in China’s humanoid robotics sector to date.
US companies are moving beyond shiny demos and focusing on real-world applications. In addition, they pursue their own aggressive goals. The US startup Foundation, for example, plans to build 50,000 humanoid robots by the end of 2027.
But China is already targeting a mix of low-cost mass market models and high-end applications, rapidly expanding humanoids across the industrial, consumer, and renovation sectors, according to a December TrendForce report.
Bottlenecks in China’s governance
When it comes to AI systems and integrated software, it is not clear where Chinese firms really stand. The industry is betting big on visual language action models and “global models,” but both of these technologies remain in the early stages. Nvidia currently leads the space with its end-to-end humanoid software stack, according to Xu, so naturally most humanoid startups in China are powered by Nvidia’s Orin chips. However, home chip makers are developing home alternatives, he said.
However, humanoid robotics developers are still working on important problems. The challenge enables basic robotics models to predict the “next physical state” the robot will encounter in unexpected environments, much like large language models predict the next word. But unlike LLMs, humanoid robot companies can’t simply scour the Internet for training data, Xu said. So most rely on simulation environments, which generate synthetic data, although real-world data collection is still important.
“Due to the problem of lack of data, humanoids are still far from independent. The hardware is currently ahead of the software – the robot’s body can handle much greater creativity today than in previous years (although it has reliability problems, as we have seen with robots that have broken in humanoid marathons), but the brain is still small,” said the analyst.
Safety is a major hurdle for humanoid robots, too. One high-profile accident could cause a public backlash, and China may be weighing how to get the technology out quickly without going too fast. As the industry grows, more regulations are expected.
Given the lack of data, Zhao believes that the demand for humanoids will grow first in well-contained workplaces.
“Early momentum is likely to be in manufacturing, warehousing, and retail, where tasks are repetitive, hours are long, and processes are clear – creating a real need and ideal conditions for humanoid robots to bring value to scale,” he said.
Other APAC players
The development of Humanoid robots is not a two-way race. Japan’s robotics ecosystem – from startups to semiconductor heavyweights – aims for humanoid production by 2027. Long a pioneer with projects like Honda’s Asimo, Murata Manufacturing’s Murata Boy, and SoftBank Robotics’ Pepper, Japan relies on precision and advanced control. One area that stands out in this nation: Humanoid robots are increasingly being used in elder care.
Coral Capital CEO James Riney, who invests in technology companies in Japan, believes Tokyo will continue to thrive in the humanoid robotics industry. “There are three factors that could drive the adoption of robotics in Japan. One is a labor shortage and a desire to be less dependent on mass migration. The second is a widespread cultural perception of robots as our friends – more of a Doraemon vs. Terminator. The third is that Japan is already a leader in many parts of the robotic supply chain.”
Hyundai Motor’s Boston Dynamics division has unveiled a new Atlas humanoid for factory use by 2028, with plans to produce up to 30,000 units a year in the US as part of its push for AI-driven robots.
Still, in China, government policy, industrial strategy, labor shortages, and private finance are all converging to turbocharge the country’s push for humanoid robots.
“China’s leadership is best understood as a speed-to-scale advantage,” Zhao said. “The ecosystem here squeezes the entire cycle — R&D, supply chain, manufacturing, integration, and customer deployment — into a very tight loop. That means humanoid companies can go from prototype to real-world use quickly, learn from real-world operations, and iterate at a pace that’s hard to match anywhere else.”
