China will struggle to make money from humanoid robots

• Humanoid robots are again making headlines after a Beijing demonstration on August 25, 2026 in which a Chinese robot completed the 100‑metre sprint in just 8.86 seconds, shattering the previous human record and even beating earlier robot times reported at 9.39 seconds. The same event featured a robot high‑jump of 2.88 metres, surpassing the human world record of 2.45 metres, and a half‑marathon run that outpaced the best human time. The showcase, part of the second World Humanoid Robot Games, attracted more than 2,000 robots and drew global media attention.
• Meanwhile, Chinese robotics firm Unitree Robotics, the maker of several of the record‑setting machines, saw its Shanghai IPO surge more than 460 percent on debut and is now forecasting annual humanoid shipments of about 50,000 units for 2026, up from 12,000 in 2025. Despite the rapid progress, Unitree’s founder Wang Xingxing cautioned that humanoid robots may still be a decade away from achieving a “ChatGPT moment,” noting that current systems struggle to generalise across unfamiliar tasks and to execute precise movements.

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