Chinese humanoids steal the spotlight at San Francisco's robot party - Business Insider
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Key takeaways
- China remains the global leader in humanoid robotics, accounting for roughly 90 percent of shipments last year and dominating the high‑profile World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing, where a Beijing‑based “Tiangong Ultra” model sprinted 100 metres in 9.39 seconds—faster than Usain Bolt’s record—and shattered the 400‑metre record with a time of about 38.15 seconds.
- The Games, featuring over 2,000 robots from 666 teams across 16 countries, are being used as a showcase for both athletic feats and emerging applications in factories, homes and even potential military roles; a developer at the event told CBS News that fully autonomous humanoid soldiers could appear within five to ten years.
- Meanwhile, Silicon Valley’s Actuate conference highlighted a hardware shortage exacerbated by recent FCC restrictions on foreign‑made advanced robotic devices, prompting U.S. manufacturers to call for domestic supply chains while investors poured a record $15 billion into robotics globally in 2025 and another $18.8 billion so far in 2026.
- Analysts project the worldwide humanoid market could be worth $7.5 trillion by 2050, with China’s domestic market expected to reach $2.2 billion this year and grow at least 60 percent into 2027 as mass production ramps up.
- Despite the excitement, many experts caution that true general‑purpose, human‑like robots remain years away and that commercial viability will hinge on scaling hardware and delivering practical, non‑spectacle use cases.
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The latest news and analysis on robotics, from humanoid AI to real-world automation.
The latest news and analysis on robotics, from humanoid AI to real-world automation.
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By Rya Jetha ## Robotics leaders worried about FCC restrictions
The hardware shortage has taken on new urgency since the Federal Communications Commission imposed restrictions on new foreign-made "advanced robotic devices" last month. US manufacturers have welcomed protection from subsidized Chinese rivals, while startups and researchers say that losing access to inexpensive Chinese hardware could leave the country further behind.
The move became one of the biggest topics of conversation at the conference. Chinese companies accounted for roughly 90% of global shipments of humanoid robots last year. Beneath the exuberance loomed the industry's central constraint: As money and talent pour in, hardware remains scarce. I spotted a few robot dogs doing backflips at a booth on my way in, and caught a glimpse of Abi, Andromeda's multicolored companion humanoid, blowing bubbles into the audience during CEO Grace Brown's talk. Otherwise, it was slim pickings.
"Hardware is the missing piece," Theophile Gervet, cofounder and president of Genesis AI, which builds a general-purpose robot called Eno, told me at the conference. "There's less hardware being built than what the industry needs."
At Actuate, data vendors outnumbered robots
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