The humanoid robots manufactured in China have caused a sensation for their ability to do backflips, direct traffic and even make coffee, while the companies that develop them look for ways to expand and dominate the market.
These companies claim they have thousands of orders from both the government and private companies to deliver humanoids capable of doing things like sorting packages at postal centers.at a time when the country is looking for a way to deal with the aging of the population and the increase in labor costs. However, some experts believe that the manufacturing capacity of these robots is far above their demand.
China and USA They dominate research into what Morgan Stanley says is a $5 trillion market for humanoid robots.
According to some metrics, the United States has an advantage in the development of artificial intelligence for the high-end computing power — or their “brains” — that robots require. But, as the world’s factory, China leads the way in mass production capacity, hardware supply and data collection to train robots.
Manufacturers say demand is increasing
Matrix Roboticsbased in Shanghai, makes humanoid robots that use AI. Its flagship product, the “MATRIX-3,” stands nearly five feet, six inches tall and features hands capable of finely controlled movements. Its price is around $99,000 per unit.
Among the nearly 1,000 orders it has received, there are clients such as coffee chains and hotelsthe founder and CEO of Matrix Robotics recently commented, Allan Zhangwho previously worked for Tesla.
The company has only manufactured a few hundred of these robots so far, although it indicated that it will be able to deliver 5,000 units within this year.depending on the number of orders.
EngineAIa Shenzhen-based startup, claims its full-size humanoid robots can be used as security guards and museum guides. They also practice dance and boxing.
Its basic robot model costs 180,000 yuan ($26,600). “The next step will be to move on to more real scenarios,” he stressed. Isaac LiHead of Brand and Marketing at EngineAI.
Demand for robots could lag
Most humanoid robots remain more superficial than functional, unable to work effectively in messy and unpredictable environments.said Sam Sacksa researcher at New America, a think tank focused on Chinese technology.
“The use cases for these robots are still very limited,” he said. Chibo Tangfrom the venture capital firm Gobi Partnerswhich makes investments in technological and robotics startups. “Without demand and without that scale of the market, these companies are not really able to start mass production.”
By 2025, China had more than 140 humanoid robot manufacturers and more than 330 models, according to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. The Chinese government even publicly warned last year about the risk of a bubble in the industry, taking into account the lag in marketing and applications.
Corporate and academic laboratories are purchasing humanoid robots for research. And in China, much of the more than 2 billion yuan ($295 million) in orders placed last year were from state-owned companies for use in places like power plants, data centers or for entertainment, Morgan Stanley said.
“Economic conditions are difficult: humanoid robots remain expensive to produce, delicate to operate, and dependent on highly structured environments to function,” Sacks explained. There is still “a long way to go to get to a level of functionality that people really feel comfortable having in their homes to care for children or the elderly,” he added.
China bets heavily on humanoids
The most viable trade route will likely be through industrial and logistics environments, Sacks said. But many factories in China and elsewhere are already equipped with non-humanoid robotic arms that perform single and repetitive functions, and may not need many humanoid robots.
In Japan and in the United States, humanoid robot startups also have difficulty finding buyers in industrial and other work environments.
However, real-world deployment of humanoid robots has accelerated in China over the past year.
The Chinese are relatively “accustomed to these rapid changes in terms of technology,” he said. Ye Tianformer engineer Apple and founder and CEO of the startup RoboSciencewhich is dedicated to the development of the systems responsible for robots powered by the use of AI.
As the technology matures, humanoids could perform heavy lifting and routine labor in warehouses, factories and ports, he said. Lian Jye Sufrom the technological research group Omdia.
Humanoid robots can also fill gaps in dangerous or repetitive jobs, Matrix’s Zhang said. There is also a “very large domestic market” for household chores in hundreds of millions of households in China, he said.
In Beijing, social media content creator Yang Ning recently tested a cleaning service using a robot with mechanical arms and hands. You can do simple tasks like sorting shoes, folding clothes and changing garbage bags, but you are accompanied by a person who is responsible for cleaning.
Watching the robot sort out shoes in the entryway of his house was “amazing,” he said. Still, he felt that the assistant robot was not as efficient and that it was “a little too big and moved around with difficulty in a small house.”
China leads the global humanoid robot market
Chinese humanoid robots accounted for about 85% globally last yearAccording to a recent research report by Barclays.
Chinese startups have the advantage of enormous state support, in line with the Communist Party’s five-year plan (2026-2030), which targets the frontiers of technology, including advances in humanoid robots.
Of the more than 13,000 humanoid robots delivered last year, AGIBOT and Unitree — two of China’s leading robotics companies — each shipped more than 5,000 unitswhile competing companies from the United States such as Figure AI and tesla they delivered a few hundred or less, according to Omdia.
Morgan Stanley expects humanoid sales in China to more than double this year to around 28,000 units. Omdia predicts that annual shipments of advanced robots could exceed one million units by the early 2030s.
Some robot manufacturers say they are already profitable. Unitree It said its revenue was about 1.7 billion yuan (about $250 million) last year, with a profit of more than 278 million yuan ($41 million).
Manufacturers expect costs to fall as production of humanoid robots increases. Using more locally made parts also helped make Chinese robots 20% cheaperon average, than foreign models, Morgan Stanley reported. It estimates the average price could fall to about $21,000 by 2050, down from $46,000 last year.
In China, some humanoid robots were under $6,000.
Cost remains an obstacle
Although China’s humanoids are already cheaper than those made elsewhere, they are still “too expensive for widespread deployment”according to a report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies.
Another challenge for manufacturers is accumulating enough good quality data to train more robots.
Wang Xiaogangco-founder of the software company AI SenseTime and president of ACE Roboticssaid his company is collecting a lot of data from factories, retail stores and office environments that could lead to advanced robots performing more complicated functions.
For humanoid robots to learn more than individual tasks, data is needed from a wide range of scenarios in public and private environments with a certain degree of difficulty.said Eric Guo, founder and CEO of Shenzhen-based AI² Robotics. But scaling that up on a large scale could take years.
“The mass production capacity in the robotics area is still at a very early stage,” Guo stressed.