~50%
Share of global industrial robot installations
IFR TREND
Home / Robotics
Track 01 / 机器人
The machines are learning to walk — and China is setting the pace.
From the factory arm to the household humanoid, China has turned robotics into a volume game. Cheap actuators, abundant batteries and the densest manufacturing base on earth are collapsing prices that the rest of the industry assumed would hold for another decade.
470+
Robots per 10k manufacturing workers (density, est.)
IFR DENSITY EST
<$20k
Signalled price point for entry humanoids
DEV CLAIMS '25
10+
Domestic humanoid programs racing to market
CHINA KEY TRACK
The dynamics / 关键动力
Why the curve bends here.
Three structural advantages compound. Together they explain how a humanoid went from lab curiosity to catalogue item.
01
The actuator supply chain
Harmonic drives, servo motors and reducers — historically the costly bottleneck — are now made domestically at scale. Vertical integration strips cost out of every joint.
02
Batteries as a birthright
The same cell ecosystem that powers EVs and drones gives robotics teams cheap, energy-dense packs. Mobility is no longer the expensive part.
03
Embodied AI meets hardware iteration
Pair fast-moving model labs with weekly hardware revisions and you get a feedback loop Western firms struggle to match on speed or price.
Who to watch / 关注名单
The bench.
Unitree 宇树
UBTech 优必选
Fourier 傅利叶
AgiBot 智元
Xpeng Robotics 小鹏
Estun 埃斯顿
Inovance 汇川
Questions answered / 问答
What people ask us about China robotics.
Why is China a leader in robotics?
China pairs the world's largest base of deployed industrial robots with deep, low-cost supply chains for motors, actuators, sensors and batteries — plus sustained national policy support. The result is faster, cheaper hardware iteration than most global rivals can match.
Which Chinese companies make humanoid robots?
Names to know include Unitree, UBTech, Fourier, AgiBot and Xpeng's robotics unit, plus research efforts inside the large tech platforms. They span research-grade bipeds through to commercially priced quadrupeds you can buy today.
How cheap are Chinese humanoid robots really?
Cheaper every quarter. Several developers have signalled humanoid platforms priced in the tens of thousands of dollars — well under earlier industry assumptions — enabled by domestic actuator and battery supply. Pricing remains fluid and capability varies widely.
Is this just for factories, or consumers too?
Both. Industrial arms and logistics robots dominate revenue today, but quadrupeds and humanoids are being positioned for inspection, security, research and eventually the home. Consumer readiness is the open question we track closely.
Go deeper / 深入
Map the robotics race before your competitors do.
Our robotics track follows pricing, supply chains and the companies that matter — translated, contextualised and numbers-grounded.