The Chinese humanoid robot manufacture is entering a fresh phase: its main producers are increasingly moving from technology presentation to production, implementation and financing models. Unitree Robotics completed the stock issue before its planned debut on the STAR marketplace market in Shanghai, while AgiBot, known in China as Zhiyuan Robotics, began the preparation process for entering the Hong Kong stock exchange. Both companies are frequently compared, but make different paths to a akin goal: creating robots capable of working outside the lab.
Two stock exchange processes, 2 different stages
The acceleration of both companies was presented in Chinese manufacture media as a "start signal" for Chinese humanoid robotics. However, this needs to be clarified. In the case of Unitree, the process is further advanced: the company completed its public offering on the STAR marketplace market, setting the issue price at 150.80 yuan per share. The issue includes 40,446 million fresh shares and is to bring about 6.1 billion gross yuan. Stock listings at this price started on August 10 (IPO subscription).
The company has closed the issue phase and is awaiting its debut. This debut – according to commentators – will show not only the interest of investors, but besides the scale of expectations for the full industry.
AgiBot is on this way earlier. On July 24, the company announced the launch of the Hong Kong stock exchange process. However, it did not specify the timing of the prospectus, the size of the bid or the mark valuation. Amounts ranging from $40 to $50 billion, appearing in Chinese media relations, are an assessment of an anonymous investor alternatively than an authoritative issue condition. TMTPost wrote about "submission of documents", but the information available to the public allows safe talk only about starting preparations for IPO in Hong Kong.
Unitree: first available platform and hardware scale
The Unitree model grew out of quadruped robots and was then expanded to include humanoids. The company develops its own key modules, including drive structures, gears, encoders and control systems, while utilizing the external supply of any cells, computational components or sensors. In the issue documents, it presents this as a way to velocity up product iteration and cost control.
The most visible feature of this strategy is the combination of a wide portfolio with a comparatively low entry threshold (easy accessibility). The Humanoid G1 of Unitree production in the company's papers was valued at 85 1000 yuan, and the R1 model was 39,9 1000 yuan. specified devices are so rather easy accessible to laboratories, universities, software improvement teams and companies wishing to check their own robot applications. This context is developed in the text about Unitree and the Future of Humanoid Robots.
In the first 3 quarters of 2025, Unitree gained 595.19 million yuan gross from the sale of humanoids. investigation and education came from 73.60 percent of this amount, from commercial and consumer applications 17.39 percent, and from manufacture applications 9.01 percent. That doesn't mean robots don't go to industrial companies. It shows that research, training and improvement platforms stay the main marketplace of the company, not production facilities, logistics centres or service companies.
Unitree besides reported that in 2025 she delivered over 5.5 1000 humanoid robots. The company itself points out that the statistic of the sector are not full comparable: various studies treat humanoids, work on wheels with 2 arms and a device of akin construction to human. The claim of a planet leader's position should so be linked to methodology and data source, not treated as an undisputed ranking of the full market.
AgiBot: industry, data and cooperation network
AgiBot was created in 2023, and its strategy accentuates the industrial environment and data obtained during robot work. The company is referred to as a maker of universal AI robots, but its operation is not limited to machines alone. It besides builds models, data collection tools and business relations with factories and local entities.
According to the founder and CEO Deng Taihua, the company's gross in 2025 exceeded 1 billion yuan. AgiBot has not yet published a stock prospectus which would let for a detailed comparison of gross segments, margins and customers.
Specific industrial attempts are important. In April, Securities Times described the work of the AgiBot Genie G2 robot at the Longcheer tablet mill in Nanchang. The task included eight-hour work on download, put-down and control operations on the 3C line. According to the information provided by the task participants, the robot was expected to execute tasks in a cycle of 18–20 seconds, and the plan for the 3rd 4th was to grow implementations to a 100 units.
However, this single implementation should not be identified with widespread automation of production. This is an crucial test in a real factory, but inactive a test limited to a circumstantial position, product and process. Its value for AgiBot is primarily data: any correctly or mistakenly performed operation can service to improve recognition, traffic planning and manipulation.
The company announced in June that it produced a 15,000 humanoid robot; the jubilee device was an industrial G2. This own message by AgiBot, which is why it primarily talks about production capacity and the rate of scaling, not about the number of permanent humanoids in client facilities. This difference is peculiarly crucial in a sector where the number of productions, shipments, loans, demonstrations and actual implementations are frequently mixed in 1 narrative.
Equipment and models are no longer opposing roads
TMTPost portrays Unitree as a company that first built a "body" robot: efficient, affordable and fast-produced. AgiBot was first to make the ‘brain’, i.e. models allowing to operate in a changing environment and then to usage implementations in factories to collect data.
Unitree besides invests in software models and development. In the issue documents, she pointed out that broad applications of humanoids presently restrict primarily
- the ability of the embodiment AI models to generalise and
- durability and precision of robotic hands.
AgiBot in turn cannot build effective models without stable, serially manufactured equipment, components supplies and implementation procedures. Both companies request to make equipment, software, data and service network simultaneously.
The difference is alternatively the order of gross building and the main customer. The Unitree present primarily sells a platform that others can further develop. AgiBot tries to enter circumstantial industrial processes in parallel to collect data and show a return on implementation. The first model builds the user community and distribution channel faster, the second can better match the product to a demanding workstation. However, each has a different risk: in the first, it is hard to increase the share of industrial implementation quickly, in the second, it is harder to repeat the success of 1 task in many plants.
Year of mass production or individual implementations?
In China, 2026 is referred to as the “year of mass production” of humanoids. Xinhua reported that the Ministry of manufacture and Information and the Committee on Supervision and Administration of State Activities had launched a program of real humanoid and AI robots training. By the end of the year, the programme is expected to carry out part of the "work mode" and support the implementation capacity of tens of thousands of units.
This political and industrial mobilisation does not remove method barriers. Xinhua's relation with factories in Zhejiang emphasizes that robots are increasingly coping with single, repetitive tasks, but it is harder for them to execute operations requiring precise grip, to work with soft or variable materials and to adapt to new, previously unknown conditions. The reliability of continuous operation, the cost of real line data, safety and the deficiency of common interface and communication standards stay crucial.
Therefore, the next fewer years will be a test not so much of the number of robots manufactured or shown on phase as their ability to work for many hours with repetitive quality, under conditions justifying the cost of purchase, service and integration. Capital from the stock exchange can accelerate the construction of factories, models and implementation programs. However, it will not replace a long process of collecting data, industrial tests and creating service competences.
What the marketplace values in Chinese robotics
The capital curious in Unitree and AgiBot is not just about selling machines today. It besides assesses the ability of companies to build an ecosystem: relations with factories, access to components, distribution channels, actual work data and tools for fast adaptation of the robot. In this sense, IPO is not a meth but a way of financing the next stage.
Unitree already has a hardware scale, a recognizable brand and a large investigation and educational audience base. AgiBot focuses on accelerating production and demonstrating values in circumstantial industrial applications. Which strategy will prove to be more sustainable will be decided not by a single supply ranking or by a valuation, but by the rate of transition from test positions to safe, cost-effective and repetitive implementations.
If both stock marketplace debuts give emergence to investors' interest and the consequence is at least a unchangeable stock price, this means that among stock marketplace investors there is simply a group of people who are convinced of the tremendous possible of the humanoid robot industry. China seems to have the highest state authorities and the largest private companies among the convinced. For investors, it is rather a clear signal that there will be a lot and a good deal in this sector in the coming years.
Sources
1.宇树上市,智元递表:中国机器人按下发令枪 [Unitree domika IPO, Zhiyuan moves towards the stock market: Chinese robotics presses the trigger], TMTPost, 13 August 2026,
2.宇树科技股份有限公司关于首次公开发行股票并在科创板上市预先审阅申请文件的问询函的回复 [Unitree Robotics consequence to pre-issue papers inquiries], Shanghai Stock Exchange, 20 March 2026, https://static.sse.com.cn/stock/disclosure/announcement/c/202603/002178_20260320_OE27.pdf
3.宇树科技 ,未上市先疯抢!场外“暗盘”兴起 [A large interest in Unitree shares prior to the start of listing], Securities Times, August 14, 2026,
4.智元机器人启动港股上市 ,投资人称目标估值400亿至500亿港元 [AgiBot begins the process of entering the Hong Kong stock exchange], Caijing, 25 July 2026,
5.全球首个具身智能工业产线规模落地 智元精灵G2进厂8小时作业直播 [AgiBot Genie G2 in an eight-hour test on an industrial production line], Securities Times, 14 April 2026,
6.AGIBOT’s 15,000th Robot Rolls Off the Production Line, Marking a fresh Milestone in Embodied AI Deployment, AgiBot, June 2026,
7.从“上场’到“进厂’——“人形机器人量产元年’新观察 [From presentation to factory: observations from the ‘year of mass production’ of humanoids], Xinhua, 23 July 2026, https://www.news.cn/liangzi/20260723/d5872820f7774332aa2ce8e0cae1a41/c.html
Leszek B. Glass
Email: [email protected]
