Hinter dem Festival der Humanoid-Roboter-Wettbewerbe brodelt die heimliche Konkurrenz zwischen den Städten.
Humanoid robot competitions have never flocked into the public eye like 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, for events such as football, artistic gymnastics, dance, and martial arts, the control mode of the robots must be fully autonomous and not rely on manual remote control.
Before this, the world's first humanoid robot "half - marathon", the world's first humanoid robot fighting competition, the first Embodied Intelligence Robot Games... Many pioneering competitions have been held in multiple places across the country. Beyond the competition track, a more intense industrial competition has spread across the country.
Undercurrents are surging in the urban competition
Looking back, after Unitree Technology "ignited" the concept of humanoid robots during this year's Spring Festival Gala, major cities have stepped up their layout. There has been a "competition boom" for humanoid robots in places such as Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Wuxi, and Shenzhen. 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, the compound annual growth rate of global humanoid robot sales from 2025 to 2035 can reach 94%, and the market size will reach $154 billion in 2035. This year is a crucial stage for the industrialization of humanoid robots to "get a head - start".
Data from CCID Consulting shows that in 2023, the industrial scale of humanoid robots in Guangdong, Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang ranked among the top five in the country, with 1.13 billion yuan, 640 million yuan, 450 million yuan, 360 million yuan, and 350 million yuan respectively. However, as the industry is in its early stage of development, there are no industrial parks and clusters specifically focused on the theme of humanoid robots. Most of them are developing humanoid - robot - related industries based on the original 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 sophisticated small and medium - sized enterprises, build 2 - 3 industrial development agglomeration areas, and foster and explore a number of new businesses, new models, and new formats. By 2027, the comprehensive strength will reach the world - advanced level and become an important new engine for economic growth.
Guided by policies, local governments are deploying 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 places such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangdong, and Zhejiang, the number of whole - machine enterprises is in the first echelon in China.
Currently, there are nearly 30 humanoid robot whole - machine enterprises in Beijing, ranking first in the country. More than 20 of them are from Haidian, including Galaxy Universal and Lingbao CASBOT. In February this year, Beijing released a three - year action plan for embodied intelligence. It is expected 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, the total mass - production scale will exceed 10,000 units first, and cultivate a 100 - billion - level industrial cluster.
In Shanghai, Zhangjiang Robot Valley, as one of the main battlefields 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 Intelligence, 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 Robotics, Zhongqing Robotics, Zhujidongli, and Ubtech. In March this year, the "Shenzhen Action Plan for Technological Innovation and Industrial Development of Embodied Intelligence Robots (2025 - 2027)" was issued, requiring Shenzhen to tackle and break through multiple core technologies in the next three years, and put forward the quantitative goal of "cultivating more than 1,200 related enterprises and forming a 100 - billion - level related industrial scale by 2027".
Zhejiang also has several representative enterprises releasing whole - machine products, including Unitree Technology, Wuba Intelligence, and Deep Robotics in Hangzhou, the Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Junpu Intelligence, and Dongzi Technology in Ningbo, and Hechuan Technology in Quzhou. Zhejiang proposed to strive to reach a core industrial scale of 20 billion yuan for humanoid robots and a related industrial scale of 50 billion yuan 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 subdivided fields such as key components, also has general - purpose humanoid robot enterprises such as Magic Atom and Estun Kuzhuo, and wheeled humanoid robot enterprises such as Nanjing Tianchuang and Youliqi. According to the industrial development action goals deployed by Jiangsu, by 2027, the comprehensive strength of the robot industry will reach the international advanced level. Among them, Wuxi proposed to build a 30 - billion - level industrial cluster 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 field. Through the competition platform, local high - quality robot projects can be discovered and cultivated, an effective channel for investment promotion can be built, and excellent robot enterprises from across the country can be attracted to settle and develop.
Many people also said in media interviews that these competitions help to trigger the agglomeration effect of the robot industry and drive the development of related supporting industries. For example, upstream component enterprises can get trial - installation opportunities to 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 can 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, and sales services.
Is the "iPhone moment" unlikely to appear in 3 - 5 years?
For each city, being the first to break through the 10,000 - unit total mass - production scale and reaching a 10 - billion or 100 - billion - level industrial scale have become the short - term goals for each city 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 that there will be an event similar to the "iPhone moment" for humanoid robots 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 sector is accelerating, which is used for product iteration 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 compared with the previous 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 at the angel round. Different from the fluctuations of Tesla's robots seen in the market, the primary market has a high 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 a differentiation of categories and supply chains in the industrial chain. On the one hand, the number of financings for special - purpose robots has always remained hot. The industry attaches more and more importance to vertical applications and commercial closed - loops, and robots for companionship, medical care, and cleaning purposes 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 "Finance & Economics