China’s humanoid robot army is already outgrowing America’s

While Elon Musk touted plans to produce an army of Tesla bots in Silicon Valley this month, humanoid robots were already being produced and sold to consumers in China.

Chinese and American companies have started the battle create the best bots in the world. While it's early days, experts say China is leading the way in the number of robots shipped to consumers, while America is leading the way in the quality of robots on display.

Musk danced with Tesla Optimus bots at his company's shareholder meeting and outlined plans to build a factory in Fremont that he said could one day produce a million bots a year that would sell for about $20,000 in today's dollars. One of the leading Chinese robotics companies, Unitree Robotics, has already introduced a humanoid robot to the market that can walk, dance and perform basic tasks. The cheapest version costs about $6,000.

While Unitree's low-cost bot is far less sophisticated than Optimus, its early entry into the real market at an affordable price demonstrates China's advantage. The country has the parts, production capacity and labor needed to bring fast-growing robots to market quickly and cheaply, said PC Tseng, an analyst at technology consultancy TrendForce.

“The U.S. leads in technological innovation, and China surpasses it in speed of adoption,” he said. “The real turning point will come when humanoid robots move from research and development prototypes to large-scale deployment.”

The International Federation of Robotics (IFR) estimates that there are at least 80 humanoid robot companies in China, five times more than in the United States. According to a Morgan Stanley report on humanoid robots earlier this year, Chinese companies have introduced more than twice as many robots as U.S. companies since 2022, while Chinese organizations have applied for more than three times as many patents using the word “humanoid” over the past five years.

At the forefront is Unitree, which went viral in January after its humanoid robots performed a live Chinese folk dance, rhythmically marching, tossing and twirling handkerchiefs. This model, which costs about $90,000, won the first race at the first Beijing Humanoid Robot Games in August, it took him 6.5 minutes to run about a mile.

The company has become a Chinese tech darling and is preparing for an initial public offering at a reported $7 billion valuation.

The ultimate goal of creating a versatile robot that can pack goods, do housework, and assist in surgical procedures is still a long way off. Humanoid robots are not yet fully autonomous and are mainly purchased by hobbyists, research institutions or manufacturers. Hyundai Motor Group is introducing robots produced by Boston Dynamics at its automobile factories. In China, humanoid robots are also bought and rented as entertainment to dance and perform at events.

According to TrendForce, the latest generation of Tesla Optimus humanoid robot is significantly superior to products from leading Chinese manufacturers, including Unitree, in terms of body and arm versatility, load capacity and battery life. Another advantage of American robotics companies is their advanced artificial intelligence capabilities, which will be critical in developing robots that can learn to perform basic human tasks independently.

Musk says Tesla's advantage is that it has the engineering capabilities to create limbs, artificial intelligence to control brains and the manufacturing know-how to mass produce bots. He predicts that the movements of the next generation of Optimus will be indistinguishable from those of humans.

“It will seem like there's some sort of man in a robot suit,” he told shareholders this month. “It will actually be something special.”

His prediction recently came true – in China. Electric vehicle maker XPeng showed off its latest bot this month, and its casual gait was so human-like that the company had to convince some skeptics it was a robot by carrying heavy scissors on stage to cut off the synthetic leather and reveal its mechanical insides.

By prioritizing commercialization, Chinese manufacturers are relying on government support and manufacturing prowess to gain the upper hand in the latest frontier of technological competition with the United States, just as they have come to dominate other industries such as solar panels and electric vehicles.

“They're not pioneers in anything. But they're building a lot of robots, selling them very, very cheaply and just trying to get them out into the world,” said Eric Valenza-Slabe, managing partner of Asia Growth Partners, a Shanghai-based consultancy that helps companies expand in Asia. “In the long run, this may be the best strategy.”

Morgan Stanley estimates that the humanoid robot market will be worth $5 trillion by 2050, and by that point China will likely have nearly four times as many humanoid robots as the United States.

While China's massive force deployment may help its companies outpace the U.S. in real-world training, public failures have highlighted the limitations of Chinese technology and potential risks to human safety.

During the first robot half marathon in Beijing this year, many mechanical participants fell and overheated, and only six of 21 completed the distance. Last December, a Unitree bot fell and began convulsing during a demonstration, drawing ridicule online.

Meanwhile, the trade war between China and the US could prevent both sides from developing better bots.

Both countries have sought to build and exploit their strengths in high-tech areas. The US has restricted semiconductor exports to China in an attempt to hinder its rival's technological development. Meanwhile, China has a near-monopoly on rare earths, a critical component in batteries and computer chips, and has tightened export controls to squeeze out the U.S. and other countries.

To achieve self-sufficiency, China has made advanced robotics a key tenet of its national technological and economic development strategy. Earlier this year, China announced the creation of a state-owned venture fund to raise and invest $138 billion in robotics and artificial intelligence.

“What China has wanted to do since it entered the robotics game is to circumvent the dominance of traditional technologies by foreign suppliers,” said Lian Jie Su, chief analyst for artificial intelligence and robotics in Asia at research firm Omdia. “The only reason China can do this is because it has the political support.”

The lack of similar government policies in the U.S. could hamper efforts to compete with China, said Suzanne Biller, secretary general of the IFR, especially as deployment and data become central to training artificially intelligent robots.

“In China, the government encourages companies to test new technology, and that's a critical benefit. It's something that American startups investing in humanoids will have to work a lot harder for,” she said.