Robots that look and move like human beings. The word "robot" was coined in a 1920 play by Karel Čapek, evoking the word for drudgery in his native Czech. Although robotic arms became widespread in manufacturing from the 1960s, it is only now that researchers can recreate human mobility in metal and, thanks to artificial intelligence, human minds in silicon.
Goldman Sachs forecasts that within a decade the market for humanoid robots could be worth $200bn. Citigroup reckons sales may reach $7trn by 2050. Bank of America talks of 3bn humanoids by 2060, doing everything from handling hazardous materials to caring for the elderly.
All three banks expect China to be at the forefront of the humanoid-robot revolution. The Communist Party is promoting the sector both as a matter of technological pride and, given the country's shrivelling working-age population, out of demographic necessity. In January 2025 robots devised by Unitree, a startup from Hangzhou, pranced on stage during the Spring Festival Gala. In a speech Li Qiang, China's premier, name-checked Unitree alongside DeepSeek. Humanoids featured prominently at the February 2026 Spring Festival Gala as well.
More than 14,500 humanoids were delivered globally in 2025, up from around 3,000 in 2024, according to Omdia, a research firm. Nearly all came from China. Agibot and Unitree accounted for around three-quarters of the total; Tesla shipped just 150 of its Optimus bots. There are more than 100 Chinese humanoid-makers. The state was the biggest purchaser of humanoids in 2025 and will probably remain so in 2026 and 2027; most are being used as showpieces rather than doing real work. Humanoids deployed in factories are about 30-40% as efficient as a human at carrying boxes.
Key Chinese players include: - Unitree — a Hangzhou-based startup backed by Meituan. In April 2025 eighteen of its humanoid robots took part in a Beijing half-marathon; six completed the 21.1km course, the winner finishing in two hours and 40 minutes. - AgiBot — a humanoid startup backed by BYD and Tencent. An Agibot costs more than 100,000 yuan ($14,500). Botshare, a humanoid-rental service launched in Shanghai in December 2025, rents Agibots for as little as 2,200 yuan. - UBTech — a listed humanoid-maker which went public in 2023. It sells its robots for around $70,000 and expects to ship 500–1,000 in 2025 and more than 10,000 in 2027. - Huawei — China's mightiest tech titan, which is pursuing its own humanoid-robot programme.
Of the roughly 60 listed makers of robotic components (cameras, sensors, actuators), 48 are Chinese, with a combined market value of $217bn as of early 2025. Bank of America says this supply chain will help halve the cost of materials in a Chinese humanoid by 2030, to $17,000.
Analysts at Jefferies, an American investment bank, identify enthusiasm for humanoid robots as a bubble in the making. Humanoid robots are part of an "embodied AI" push written into the central government's work report in 2025, and local governments are falling over themselves to back them, yet it may be years before the humanoids can be put to profitable use—if they ever can. Xi Jinping himself cautioned in mid-2025 that AI, computing power and electric vehicles were areas shown excessive attention by local governments: "Do all provinces have to develop industries in these directions?"
Not all advanced robots are humanoid. Boston Dynamics, an American robot maker owned by Hyundai, a South Korean carmaker, has sold more than 1,500 units of Spot, its four-legged doglike robot. Spots are used in factories, typically for inspecting hazardous areas. A basic Spot costs around $75,000.
Kawasaki, a Japanese motorcycle maker, is developing Corleo, a rideable robotic horse with four multi-jointed legs powered by electric motors. It is controlled by the rider's hand, arm, leg and weight movements, detected by sensors and interpreted by an AI balance system. It runs on hydrogen via a small internal-combustion generator. Kawasaki says mass production could be a couple of decades away.
Xpeng, a Chinese electric-vehicle maker, has a robotics division working on a small robotic pony designed for children to ride, which it calls a child's "first smart vehicle".
The Yangtze River Delta—stretching from Shanghai inwards to the lower parts of Jiangsu province (including Changzhou) and the upper parts of Zhejiang province (including Hangzhou)—is home to Agibot, Unitree and most other leading humanoid-makers. Of the top 30 listed Chinese suppliers of robotic parts, three-quarters by market capitalisation are based in the area. The cluster is also home to AI labs such as DeepSeek (Hangzhou) and Alibaba (which released RynnBrain, an AI model for powering robots, in February 2026). The region accounts for two-fifths of China's EV production; high-torque motors, inverters, batteries, lidar sensors and other components are used in both EVs and humanoids, and many EV suppliers have shifted in part to serving robot-makers amid overcapacity. Businessmen in the Wujin district of Changzhou brag that around 90% of the parts needed to assemble a humanoid can be sourced there; several known suppliers for Tesla's Optimus hail from the district.
Fine Motion Technology, a Chinese maker of gearboxes, raised its share of the domestic market for rotating-vector reducers used in robots from a tenth in 2021 to a quarter in 2024, squeezing overseas rivals such as Japan's Nippon Gear.
Tesla's Optimus robot is the most prominent American entry. Elon Musk expects thousands to be working in Tesla factories by the end of 2025, and 1m to be produced annually by 2030. America retains the edge in robot brains—top AI models (OpenAI, Google) and the chips they need (Nvidia)—but lacks a domestic supply chain for robotic components. The two big non-Chinese parts suppliers are German (Schaeffler) and Swedish (SKF); Japanese industrial-robot firms such as Fanuc also make components in-house.
Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious.