China Puts Humanoid Robots in the Spotlight as It Pushes for Mass Production in 2025

Shanghai's Robot Showcase Meets a Production Deadline

China's humanoid robots served craft beer, played mahjong, stacked shelves and boxed at the 2025 World AI Conference in Shanghai, putting machines designed to work alongside people at the center of the country's technology ambitions. The event brought together more than 800 companies and more than 3,000 products as China pursued a government target to achieve mass production of humanoid robots in 2025.

The displays connected a national industrial strategy with tasks visitors could immediately understand. A robot handling a drink or moving goods offered a glimpse of how artificial intelligence, or AI, could move beyond screens and into workplaces. Some machines still moved awkwardly, yet their progress from the previous year was visible.

Premier Li Qiang opened the conference by announcing the creation of a new organization dedicated to AI governance. He stressed the need to balance the benefits of developing AI with its potential risks. Inside the exhibition halls, companies presented a more immediate message: demand was growing, products were improving and the race to sell them was accelerating.

Yang Yifan, research and development director at Shanghai AI platform provider Transwarp, described demand across the work needed to develop and deploy AI:

Demand is currently very strong, whether in terms of data, scenarios, model training, or artificial construction. The overall atmosphere in all these areas is very lively.

For China, the conference was also a demonstration of its ambition to rival, and potentially surpass, the United States in AI technology and the rules governing its use. Humanoid robots provided a highly visible expression of that competition, combining software, physical movement and manufacturing.

What China Wants to Achieve by 2027

The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has identified humanoid robots as a potentially disruptive technology comparable to computers and smartphones. Its guidelines set out a push to build an innovation system, make breakthroughs in key technologies and secure a reliable supply of core components, alongside the goal of mass production by 2025.

By 2027, humanoids are expected to become a significant driver of economic growth. The strategy reaches across manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, agriculture and work in hazardous environments. China also wants to help set international standards for humanoid robots, giving it a role in deciding how the technology is developed and regulated beyond its borders.

Government support includes robotics funds worth $1.4 billion in each of Beijing and Shanghai. A wider target is to reach a density of 500 robots per 10,000 workers by 2025. Robot density expresses how extensively robots are used relative to the size of a workforce.

The approach resembles China's earlier push into electric vehicles: public support, expanding production, competition on price and a strong network of suppliers. For robotics companies, access to components and repeated opportunities to test machines are central to turning demonstrations into products that customers can use regularly.

The main milestones stretch from this year's production targets to longer market forecasts:

• 2025: China aims to achieve mass production of humanoid robots and reach a robot density of 500 per 10,000 workers.
• 2025: UBTECH aims to deploy 1,000 robots, with plans to expand that number tenfold in 2026.
• 2027: Humanoid robots are expected to become a significant driver of economic growth in China.
• 2030: China's market for embodied intelligence is projected to reach 103.8 billion yuan.
• 2035: Goldman Sachs projects that the global humanoid robot market could reach $38 billion.

Unitree Pushes Down the Price of Humanoids

Hangzhou company Unitree supplied one of the clearest examples of improving movement at the Shanghai conference. Its G1 humanoid kicked, pivoted and shadowboxed around a ring while keeping its balance. The demonstration showed why agility matters to developers trying to make machines move with greater control.

Ahead of the conference, Unitree announced its full size R1 humanoid for under US$6,000, marketing it as one of the world's first humanoid robots below that price. The machine weighs 25 kilograms and has 26 joints. Its multimodal AI includes voice and image recognition, allowing it to process more than one type of information.

Unitree's prices illustrate the range within its own product line. The older G1 was priced at US$16,000, while the more advanced H1 costs over US$90,000. The R1's announced price is less than half the G1's, bringing the entry price much closer to the budgets of smaller businesses and potentially households.

Affordability is central to Unitree's approach. Rapid product revisions and efforts to reduce costs echo the methods that helped Chinese electric vehicle companies compete internationally. As production expands and suppliers become more efficient, companies hope robots will become accessible to buyers beyond large industrial groups.

UBTECH Moves Between Expo Stages and Car Factories

UBTECH used the BEYOND Expo 2025 in Macau to introduce its latest full size commercial robot, Walker C, alongside Youyou, a robot with a panda theme. The machines performed a reverse cosplay routine, impersonating the expo's founders on stage.

The Shenzhen company's industrial ambitions extend well beyond performances. It is working with Zeekr, BYD, Audi, Volkswagen and Foxconn to bring humanoid robots into production lines. Its Walker S series has completed initial training in automotive factories, and UBTECH aims to deploy 1,000 robots in 2025 before expanding deployment tenfold the following year.

Factory training gives those plans a practical setting. A machine must learn to carry out useful tasks within an existing production process, where its movements and handling have to fit the work around it. Moving from initial training to thousands of deployments would represent a substantial expansion of that effort.

Walker C has also appeared as a tour guide at the China Pavilion during the Osaka Expo 2025. It features a biomimetic torso, meaning a torso designed to imitate aspects of human movement, along with advanced motion control and the ability to interact in multiple languages.

UBTECH's smaller Alpha Mini serves a different set of uses. The portable humanoid can display emotions, recognize faces and perform movements including dancing and yoga. Together, the machines show the company's reach across business, education and entertainment, as well as industrial work.

More Machines Take on Movement and Expression

Deep Robotics, Noetix, EngineAI and Robogo Robot are also part of China's expanding robotics scene. Their machines show that developers are pursuing several kinds of physical interaction, from moving through buildings to responding to a person's face or voice.

Quadruped robots, including machines identified as the B2 and Go2 in the demonstrations described, were presented alongside Deep Robotics' work. These robots move on four legs, mimic dog behavior and are used for building inspections. Their role differs from that of a humanoid intended to work in spaces arranged around people.

Noetix has developed a highly realistic robot head that mirrors human facial expressions in real time. The technology points toward possible uses as interactive information kiosks, companions and tutors, where a machine's ability to respond visibly could be part of the interaction.

EngineAI's PM01 humanoid can reportedly perform acrobatics and guide visitors using depth cameras. Robogo Robot's Aria, powered by SenseTime AI, demonstrated growing emotional intelligence. Such systems aim to make interaction with a robot more responsive, alongside improvements in physical movement.

The demonstrations also point to work in programming, ethics and interaction between people and robots. As machines take on more tasks and respond in more humanlike ways, companies will need people to develop their behavior, examine their use and design how they communicate.

Osaka Gives Chinese Robotics an International Audience

At the Osaka World Expo 2025, UBTECH's AI powered humanoid entertained visitors at the China Pavilion by speed walking, scanning barcodes and performing receptionist duties. The setting brought Chinese robotics before an international audience outside a specialist technology conference.

The pavilion combined traditional culture with technology through bamboo panels, poetry and augmented reality experiences. Interactive displays powered by iFlytek, which specializes in voice recognition and translation, brought mythological figures including the Monkey King to life and engaged visitors in multiple languages.

Thousands of people visited the pavilion daily. For Chinese companies, that traffic offered a setting to show robots carrying out recognizable public roles, such as greeting and guiding people, while presenting a modern image of Chinese technology.

The international push is taking place amid geopolitical tensions, including U.S. sanctions and export controls on microchips. Chinese technology companies are expanding rapidly in markets outside the West while seeking to reduce dependence on foreign components. Public exhibitions and commercial expansion form different parts of that effort to reach customers abroad.

How Large Could the Market Become?

China is expected to account for more than half of global humanoid robot production in 2025. Forecasts put Chinese output above 10,000 units and sales revenue above $1.14 billion. Those expectations place the country at the center of the industry's move from pilot projects toward wider commercial production.

The market for embodied intelligence is projected to reach 5.3 billion yuan in China this year and 103.8 billion yuan by 2030, when it could capture nearly 45 percent of the global market. Embodied intelligence means AI operating through a physical machine that can interact with its surroundings.

The two yuan figures imply a market almost 20 times as large by 2030 as in 2025. They describe a period of expected expansion supported by technological improvements, demand and government policy. Actual production and sales will determine how closely the industry follows those forecasts.

Goldman Sachs projects that the global humanoid robot market could reach $38 billion by 2035. Material costs per robot are falling rapidly as production scales up, helping explain why companies are competing so intensely to lower prices and establish manufacturing capacity.

Shanghai Kepler Exploration Robotics is developing the fifth version of its worker robot and is targeting a selling price below $30,000. UBTECH sources more than 90 percent of its components from China, reducing its reliance on foreign suppliers. Domestic sourcing and frequent product revisions are central to Chinese manufacturers' expectations of further cost reductions.

The comparison with electric vehicles is especially relevant here. Government support, strong supplier networks and intense price competition helped that industry expand. Robotics companies are pursuing a similar combination, while working to turn experimental deployments into routine commercial use.

Digital Humans Bring the Jobs Debate Into Focus

Baidu's presence at the World AI Conference showed that the debate about AI and work extends beyond machines with arms and legs. It presented digital humans, AI agents modeled on real people and capable of thinking, making decisions and collaborating.

In a recent e-commerce broadcast, Baidu's digital humans outperformed their human counterparts in sales. More than 10,000 businesses are already using the technology, giving the discussion about employment an immediate commercial setting.

Wu Chenxia, head of Baidu's digital human department, described AI as a tool intended to improve work while continuing to require people:

AI is a tool that should be used to improve quality and save time and effort, which still requires human input.

Some jobs may be replaced as AI and robots become more capable. New roles are also expected to draw on creativity, emotional intelligence and problem solving, skills that robots remain far from mastering. Programming, ethics and the design of interactions between people and machines are among the areas receiving attention.

The concrete change for businesses is a growing choice of tools for selling, manufacturing, guiding visitors and handling goods. For workers, the effect will depend on which tasks employers automate and which responsibilities continue to require human judgment and participation.

The Greater Bay Area Supplies Companies and Skills

The Greater Bay Area, including Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Macau, supports China's robotics expansion through companies, investors, incubators and research centers. Its role connects the factory ambitions of firms such as UBTECH with a wider network working on AI, autonomous driving and new energy.

The BEYOND Expo GBA Innovation Tour 2025 brought industry leaders, investors and entrepreneurs to technology companies, incubators and research centers across the region. The visits covered advances in AI, robotics, autonomous driving and new energy, showing how several industries draw on the same regional innovation network.

Shenzhen's XbotPark has launched more than 80 startups, including several unicorns. Intellifusion Technologies and DeepRoute.ai are developing visual AI and autonomous driving solutions, respectively, adding to the region's concentration of businesses working on machines that perceive and respond to their surroundings.

UBTECH, headquartered in Shenzhen, has developed a full stack of humanoid robotics technologies, covering the layers needed to build and operate its machines. Its solutions reach across education, logistics and wellness, connecting the region's research and manufacturing capabilities with a range of commercial customers.

Investment, Standards and Public Acceptance Remain Tests

China's robotics push faces concerns about excessive promotion, speculative investment and capital seeking quick returns. Cautions about those risks are accompanied by calls for policymakers to keep attention on research, development and testing in real settings.

Standards and risk management will be important as the market grows. Li Qiang's announcement of a new AI governance organization sits alongside China's ambition to help set international standards for humanoid robots. Companies are pursuing faster development while governments consider how to manage the technology's risks.

U.S. sanctions and restrictions on advanced microchips have affected some Chinese companies, particularly those working in sensitive technologies. China's response includes building a more self reliant supply chain and expanding in markets outside the West, steps intended to reduce exposure to those pressures.

Public acceptance presents another test. Expo visitors responded enthusiastically to dancing humanoids and robots shaped like dogs performing backflips. Wider use in daily life will bring privacy, security, ethics and employment into the discussion alongside movement, price and usefulness.

As of July 27, 2025, the industry's central task is to turn its demonstrations and deployment plans into dependable commercial activity. The next stated milestones include UBTECH's target of 1,000 deployments this year, its planned tenfold expansion in 2026 and China's broader ambition for humanoids to become a significant economic growth driver by 2027.

Key Points

• The 2025 World AI Conference in Shanghai featured more than 800 companies and more than 3,000 products, including humanoids serving drinks, playing mahjong and boxing.
• China aims for mass production of humanoid robots in 2025 and a larger economic role for them by 2027.
• Unitree announced its R1 for under US$6,000, while UBTECH aims to deploy 1,000 robots this year and ten times that number in 2026.
• China is expected to produce more than half of the world's humanoid robots in 2025, with output forecast above 10,000 units.
• China's embodied intelligence market is projected to grow from 5.3 billion yuan in 2025 to 103.8 billion yuan in 2030.
• Chinese robotics companies are pursuing factory work, public services, education and international customers while facing questions about costs, standards, employment and public acceptance.