CNBC's The China Connection newsletter: Humanoid robots are great, but they need buyers too - CNBC
WATCH LIVE Key Points A Chinese humanoid factory says robot prices can drop significantly as production scale ramps. It's less clear who will buy the robots as they remain in development.
Key takeaways
Humanoid robots are now being produced at scale in China, where factories such as Lingyi iTech are ramping up output and prices could fall dramatically as volumes rise, yet analysts note that a clear market of buyers has not yet emerged and many startups are still scrambling to secure commercial customers. In the United States and Europe, the focus is shifting from pure locomotion to real‑world manipulation, with companies like Daimon Robotics and Galbot unveiling the RobOmni benchmark that adds tactile sensing and cross‑embodiment evaluation to accelerate dexterous manipulation research, while Columbia professor Yunzhu Li stresses that realistic simulation of unstructured environments is the next bottleneck for deployment. Industrial adoption is accelerating, as illustrated by Figure 01, Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2, Agility Robotics’ Digit and other bipedal platforms being installed in factories and warehouses for heavy payloads and logistics work, but demand still lags the capacity to build them, especially in non‑humanoid‑friendly settings. At the same time, alternative designs such as Hello Robot’s wheeled Stretch 4 are being pitched for home assistance, highlighting a pragmatic approach that may outpace humanoid aesthetics in real‑world use. Overall, the market is projected to be worth several trillion dollars, with forecasts suggesting billions of units could be in service by 2060, but the industry’s near‑term growth will depend on finding viable industrial and consumer buyers and bridging the manipulation‑software gap.
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Key Points
A Chinese humanoid factory says robot prices can drop significantly as production scale ramps. It's less clear who will buy the robots as they remain in development. Analysts are also watching who can best integrate the robots with software systems.
A Lingyi iTech factory in Beijing is ramping up production of humanoid robots for various startups.
CNBC | Evelyn Cheng
Hi, this is Evelyn, writing to you from Beijing. Welcome to the latest edition of The China Connection — a snapshot of what I'm seeing and hearing from local businesses.
Humanoids are popping up everywhere, even reshaping a smartphone manufacturer. If it's a bubble, who survives?
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CNBC's The China Connection newsletter: Humanoid robots are great, but they need buyers too
Evelyn Cheng@in/evelyn-cheng-53b23624@chengevelyn
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