Behind the carnival of humanoid robot competitions, there is an undercurrent of competition among cities.
Humanoid robot competitions have never flooded into the public eye as they have this year. As the world's first comprehensive sports event with humanoid robots as the main participants, the 2025 World Humanoid Robot Games will be held in Beijing from August 14th to 17th, covering more than twenty events. Among them, in the football, artistic gymnastics, dance, and martial arts events, the robots must be controlled completely autonomously and not rely on manual remote control.
Before this, many pioneering competitions, such as the world's first humanoid robot "half - marathon", the world's first humanoid robot fighting competition, and the first Embodied Intelligence Robot Games, have been held in multiple locations across the country. Beyond the competition track, a more intense industrial competition is spreading nationwide.
Undercurrents of Competition among Cities
Looking back, after Unitree Technology "ignited" the concept of humanoid robots during this year's Spring Festival Gala, major cities have stepped up their layouts. There has been a "competition boom" for humanoid robots in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuxi, Shenzhen and other places. The skills required by the market and application scenarios have become part of the competitions, covering categories such as sports competitions, entertainment performances, and practical scenario competitions. The participating teams come from robot enterprises, scientific research institutions, and universities, forming a new ecosystem of "promoting learning, research, and production through competitions".
According to Goldman Sachs' prediction, from 2025 to 2035, the compound annual growth rate of global humanoid robot sales can reach 94%, and the market size will reach $154 billion in 2035. This year is a crucial stage for the industrial implementation of humanoid robots to "get a head - start".
Data from CCID Consulting shows that in 2023, Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang ranked among the top five in the scale of the humanoid robot industry in the country, with industrial scales of 1.13 billion yuan, 640 million yuan, 450 million yuan, 360 million yuan, and 350 million yuan respectively. However, since the industry is in its early stage of development, there are no industrial parks or clusters specifically focused on the theme of humanoid robots. Most of the related industries are developed based on the existing robot industrial parks.
In October 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots", planning to initially establish an innovation system for humanoid robots by 2025; the whole - machine products will reach the international advanced level and achieve mass production; cultivate 2 - 3 ecological enterprises with global influence and a number of specialized and innovative small and medium - sized enterprises, build 2 - 3 industrial development agglomeration areas, and foster and explore a number of new businesses, models, and formats. By 2027, the comprehensive strength will reach the world - advanced level and become an important new engine for economic growth.
Driven by policies, local governments are making appropriate arrangements for the development of the humanoid robot industry according to local conditions. Some industry insiders even said that the battle for the next world - class robot company hegemony will not be between China and the United States, but among Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. According to statistics from the New Strategy Humanoid Robot Industry Research Institute, as of December 2024, the number of global humanoid robot body enterprises has exceeded 220. Among them, Chinese enterprises account for half, more than 110. In Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, Zhejiang and other places, the number of whole - machine enterprises is in the first echelon in China.
Currently, there are nearly 30 humanoid robot whole - machine units in Beijing, ranking first in the country. More than 20 of them are whole - machine enterprises from Haidian, including Galaxy Universal and Lingbao CASBOT. In February this year, Beijing released a three - year action plan for embodied intelligence, expecting that by the end of 2027, Beijing will break through more than a hundred key technologies, cultivate no less than 50 core enterprises in the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, take the lead in exceeding 10,000 units in mass - production scale, and cultivate an industrial cluster worth hundreds of billions of yuan.
In Shanghai, Zhangjiang Robot Valley, as one of the main positions for Pudong to promote the high - quality development of the robot industry, has gathered more than 30 enterprises in the humanoid robot - related industrial chain, including leading whole - machine enterprises such as Zhipu Robotics, Fourier, and Kepler. In July 2024, Shanghai proposed to establish a national innovation center for humanoid robot manufacturing. Wang Tao, the person in charge of the Zhangjiang Robot Valley industry, said that it is expected that the shipment volume of humanoid robots of enterprises in the park will exceed 10,000 units in 2025.
Shenzhen has gathered whole - machine enterprises such as Leju, Zhongqing, Zhujidongli, and Ubtech. In March this year, the "Action Plan for Technological Innovation and Industrial Development of Embodied Intelligence Robots in Shenzhen (2025 - 2027)" was introduced, requiring Shenzhen to make breakthroughs in multiple core technologies in the next three years, and setting a quantitative goal of "cultivating more than 1,200 related enterprises and forming an associated industrial scale of hundreds of billions of yuan by 2027".
Zhejiang also has several representative enterprises that have released whole - machine products, including Unitree Technology, Wuba Intelligence, and DeepClouds in Hangzhou, the Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Junpu Intelligence, and Dongzi Technology in Ningbo, and Hechuan Technology in Quzhou. Zhejiang proposes to strive to reach a core industrial scale of 20 billion yuan and an associated industrial scale of 50 billion yuan for humanoid robots in the province by 2027.
In addition, Jiangsu, Hubei, Anhui, Shandong, Chongqing and other places are also catching up. For example, Jiangsu, which has many "hidden champions" in the subdivision fields such as key components, also has general - purpose humanoid robot enterprises such as Magic Atom and Estun Cooljoy, and wheeled humanoid robot enterprises such as Nanjing Tianchuang and Youliqi. According to Jiangsu's industrial development action goals, by 2027, the comprehensive strength of the robot industry will reach the international advanced level. Among them, Wuxi proposed to build an industrial cluster worth 30 billion yuan in three years this year, and Nanjing strives to exceed 10 billion yuan in the core industrial scale of embodied intelligence robots by 2027.
Regarding the active hosting of humanoid robot competitions by local governments, Li Mingshun, the founder of Shunfu Capital, believes that it can enhance the city's attention and influence in the robot industry, discover and cultivate high - quality local robot projects through the competition platform, build an effective channel for investment promotion, and attract excellent robot enterprises from across the country to settle and develop.
Many people also said in media interviews that these competitions help trigger the agglomeration effect of the robot industry and drive the development of related supporting industries. For example, upstream component enterprises can get the opportunity to test - fit and verify the extreme performance of their products; AI companies can collect multi - modal data in high - dynamic scenarios for algorithm training; and peripheral services such as competition operation, live broadcast, and IP development stimulate the accelerated integration of emerging industries such as culture and tourism, e - sports, and media, forming new cross - border consumption scenarios. In addition, it can also increase employment opportunities, such as competition organization, technical maintenance, referees, R & D engineers, production technicians, sales services, etc.
Is the "Apple Moment" Unlikely to Appear in 3 - 5 Years?
For each city, taking the lead in exceeding 10,000 units in mass - production scale and reaching a hundred - billion or trillion - level industrial scale has become the short - term goal for cities to compete for the humanoid robot boom and seize the industrial high - ground. For humanoid robot enterprises, 2025 is also a crucial year to prove the company's product performance, mass - production level, and commercial implementation.
In the past six months, various competitions have ignited the industrial enthusiasm for humanoid robots. Humanoid robots are constantly breaking through technological boundaries and competing with each other in real scenarios and real tasks. Behind the mixed reviews, the public also has expectations for robots to enter daily production and life, which boosts the order growth and financing speed of some enterprises. For whole - machine enterprises, what matters is that humanoid robots can be truly delivered, and customers can use them and create value.
On July 7th, UBS Securities pointed out that it is unlikely for humanoid robots to have an event similar to the "iPhone moment" in 3 - 5 years. By 2050, the demand for humanoid robots will reach 86 million units. Currently, there are technological bottlenecks and regulatory obstacles in development. Whole - machine manufacturers will face great investment pressure in the next 3 - 5 years.
However, the financing of the humanoid whole - machine type segment is accelerating for product iteration, upgrading, and large - scale mass - production and delivery. Orient Securities analyzed that, firstly, overall, the number of financings each month from January to June this year was basically the same. But the biggest difference from before was that the number of financings of humanoid robot whole - machine enterprises in June increased significantly, doubling month - on - month and significantly higher than the level from January to May 2025. It included both Unitree, which has reached the C+ round, and Digital Huaxia in the angel round. Different from the fluctuations of Tesla robots seen in the market, the primary market has a high degree of recognition of the continuous and rapid development of humanoid robots. With the support of the capital market, humanoid robot whole - machine companies are expected to enter a stage of rapid production and expansion.
Secondly, different from the previous "general" sample - sending and orders in the industrial chain, there will be differentiation in product categories and supply chains in the industrial chain. On the one hand, the number of financings for special - purpose robots has always remained high, and the industry attaches more importance to vertical applications and commercial closed - loops. Robots for companionship, medical care, and cleaning have emerged. On the other hand, the "immaturity" of financing enterprises has decreased, and financing is tilting towards more mature enterprises.
This article is from "Caixin Media", author: Liu Fen, editor: Jiang Shizhou, published by 36Kr with authorization.