Sparks flew, quite literally, as Beijing became the center of a rapidly accelerating global robotics race that just entered a new phase.
More than 4,000 robots descended on the Chinese capital for the 11th World Robot Conference and Second World Humanoid Robot Games, just as Unitree’s blockbuster stock market debut showed how much money and investor attention was pouring into the industry.
The unprecedented spectacle offered a chance for a myriad of companies to make their case for why they should be the next chosen giant. They’re racing to score billions in funding to redefine the future of work, companionship, transport, and everything in between.
World Humanoid Robot Games Begin
Participants in the second World Humanoid Robot Games went viral before the competition formally kicked off.
More than 2,000 robots from 666 teams (yeah) across 16 countries were expected to compete in around 50 events. The competition spans everything from track, soccer, dancing, and martial arts to more practical applications like logistics and housekeeping.
Compared to the 2025 Robot Olympics, this year’s event placed greater emphasis on autonomy, especially for running contests. The new requirements led to several viral moments as engineers worked kinks out at the National Speed Skating Oval.
A bipedal robot, whose maker has not been confirmed, sprinted down the indoor track at full speed, and then slammed into a blue padded barrier. It buckled sharply at the waist, appearing to almost break in half, fell backward, and produced visible sparks. A nearby operator pretended he didn’t know the robot.
Another viral practice run involved Unitree’s new high-performance humanoid, nicknamed Superman. The biped sprinted off course and veered into two electrical boxes s surprising someone on an apparent break.
According to Unitree, the robot has a top speed of 12.66 m/s (28.3 mph), which is percent faster than Usain Bolt’s peak speed achieved in 2009. Unitree also reported it reached a standing high jump height of 2 meters (6 feet 7 inches), which is 30 cm or 12 in higher than Christopher Spell’s 2021 Guinness World Record.
The Hangzhou-based company unveiled its latest robot to kick off its first week of trading on the tech-heavy Shanghai STAR Market. The whirlwind week started with an explosive debut during which the decade old firm’s valuation reached $66 billion. By week’s end, however, the stock cooled to about $100 per share, leaving Unitree’s valuation at around $41 billion.
Even after the steep pullback, the company still finished the week with a valuation more than 4.5 times higher than its IPO valuation of $9 billion.
Galbot’s First Biped Humanoid
Among the growing number of Chinese robotics firms racing to go public is Galbot, which just unveiled its next generation tennis playing humanoid robot, the ET1.
Launched in May 2023, Galbot is pursuing a Hong Kong public listing after raising around $900 million to date. Until now, it’s focused on wheeled robots like its G1 that works at its human-free pharmacies and convenience stores and its industrial S1 that’s piloting on battery production lines.
Galbot’s walking robot is compact with a build similar to Shanghai-based Agibot’s popular X2 humanoid. It has 24 degrees of freedom (DoF) across its body and 12 per hand. It appears to be an upgraded version of the robot Galbot used earlier this year to demonstrate a training framework called LATENT, short for learning athletic humanoid tennis skills from imperfect motion data, developed with Beijing’s Tsinghua University.
The ET1 runs on Galbot’s self-developed AstraBrain vision-language-action (VLA) model along with a new agentic layer for understanding its environment and acting on natural language instructions. The AI runs onboard using an NVIDIA Jetson Thor computer. According to Galbot, the robot can watch a person move and quickly copy the actions without pre-recorded motion data.
Galbot says it’s developing the ET1 as a general-purpose humanoid to do jobs in places built for humans. For now though, the ET1 appears to be primarily a research and development platform to build out skills for the future. Galbot has not yet revealed pricing, but its flagship G1 robot sells for around $95,000.
HOKMIND’s Primal Androids
A much younger startup, Shanghai-based HOKMIND, debuted its line of hyper-realistic androids from its Primal series. The lineup includes a humanoid bust and an adult scale robot with limited mobility.
Launched in March 2026, the startup’s website describes its mission as giving digital intelligence form through biomimetic design, flexible materials, and advanced motion control. It’s developing a so-called expression engine that turns speech and emotional intent into real time facial movements.
HOKMIND says it’s working with the Beijing Institute of Fashion Technology on a joint laboratory focused on embodied AI aesthetics.
AheadForm’s Elf Xuan 2.0
The startup is entering a crowding field of Chinese firms trying to normalize lifelike robots in daily life. Among the perceived leaders in the niche is fellow Shanghai-based AheadForm, which was launched two years ago by Yuhang Hu while he was getting his doctorate at Columbia University.
Before the World Robot Conference, AheadForm unveiled the second-generation version of its Elf Xuan platform. It features a newly articulated upper body with expanded motion in its arms. AheadForm appears to be working gradually toward bipedal locomotion.
The startup has reportedly secured tens of millions of dollars in funding from backers linked to Ant Group, JD.com, and Xiaomi’s Shumway Capital. Its lifelike creations require custom pricing which ranges from $50,000 to more than $150,000.
UBTECH’s New Lineup
The Shenzhen-based company UBTECH also brought its viral lifelike robots from its recently established UWorld U1 line for consumers. The publicly listed firm says it’s preparing shipments of the robots that range in price from $17,000 for a bust to more than $145,000 grand for a full-bodied variant.
UBTECH also showcased its new wheeled humanoid, the Cruzr Y1, built for factory and warehouse work. According to UBTECH, the Cruzr Y1 can work as part of an intelligent swarm with the company’s other industrial robots. It runs for more than 4 hours under a full load.
UBTECH hasn’t publicly shared pricing for the Y1, but third-party estimates place it around $45,000 to $65,000.
Lumos’ AI Worker
A much younger Shenzhen firm, Lumos Robotics, just launched its own industrial wheeled robot worker called the MOS 2. Like the Cruzr Y1, the two-armed robot moves with an omnidirectional wheeled base, which is more stable, energy efficient, and practical than what current bipedal technology offers.
The MOS 2 stands 165 cm (5 feet 5 inches) and has a reported 22 DoF. It can hold up to 30 kg (66 lbs) with both arms during what Lumos describes as normal operation and as much as 50 kg (11 lbs) at maximum capacity. The platform supports interchangeable end effectors for different jobs and runs on hot swappable batteries that the robot can change itself to minimize downtime.
According to Lumos, the MOS 2 perceives its surroundings with cameras, lidar force sensors, and other sensors. They send real-time data to its onboard AI that runs with about 275 TOPS of processing power.
The MOS 2 learns with the Lumos NexCore AI training platform which teaches robots new skills using data from real-world demonstrations, simulations, and collected operating data. Lumos says the approach cuts the time needed to develop new robotic tasks from weeks to days.
X Square Robot’s Logistics Livestream
Lumos Robotics plans to start the process of going public next year alongside the fellow Shenzhen-based X square robot which showed off its Wall-B physical AI model during a 5-hour live stream at WRC 2026.
A pair of six-axis robotic arms successfully processed 10,000 mixed parcels, including soft parcels and irregular shapes, averaging a little more than 1,900 parcels per hour at 1.88 seconds each.
X Square Robot has reportedly submitted a confidential filing to enter HKEX where it would join the Shenzhen robotics firms DOBOT and UBTECH and the recently listed Shanghai company SEER Robotics.
DaxAI’s Robotic Horse
One of the next-gen Chinese machines getting the most attention is meant for transport rather than as a workhorse.
The year-old startup DaxAI says it developed this robotic horse called the Qiji X1 to walk with a gate that mimics a real horse. It weighs about 300 kg (661 lbs) or 661 lb and can carry about the same weight. DaxAI claims its 165V battery system has a range of 40 km (25 miles) and supports up to 10 hours of operation.
It reaches speeds up to 10 km/h (6.2 mph), while a wheeled-legged variant can exceed 40 km/h (25 mph). The quadruped runs on the startup’s in-house DaxBrain Dualis world model which handles perception, scene understanding, behavior planning, and safety monitoring. DaxAI says it helps it maintain balance on slopes, gravel, mud, and other uneven surfaces, though those capabilities have mostly been demonstrated with CGI.
The X1 is priced starting around $40,000. The startup was launched in Beijing by Wong Kun, who previously worked on JD.com’s early autonomous vehicle team.
The X1 robotic horse is reminiscent of Kawasaki’s viral CORLEO concept, which the Japanese industrial giant is targeting for commercialization around 2035. While DaxAI’s version is much closer to market, Kawasaki’s CORLEO is more novel, using a hydrogen-powered engine to power its four robotic legs.
NORINCO’s Fuxi for Riot Control
Most, if not all, of the latest robots in China will likely not be allowed in the US anytime soon due to the FCC’s recently enacted restrictions on advanced foreign-made robotic devices.
One robot that definitely won’t get a pass is Fuxi, the first humanoid robot from the state-backed NORINCO Group, one of the world’s largest defense contractors.
According to Chinese reports, the robot is intended to act like a robotic avatar controlled by teleoperation for use cases like riot control. It’s named after a mythological ancient Chinese hero credited with teaching humanity the foundations of civilization.
Why So Many T800s?
EngineAI’s Terminator-inspired T800 robots, however, just shrugged off the new ban for their first cage match on US soil. Just 3 years old, Shenzhen-based EngineAI is already scaling the robots from two factories while upgrading them for more human-like sensing.
The AI powered human-like machines are sharpening their combat skills, patrolling the streets as police, and apparently helping build fellow robots. Read all about EngineAI’s plans to become China’s next robotics juggernaut right here.