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Unitree shares jump 600% as China robot race hits a wall
Unitree shares jumped 600% on debut as China's humanoid sector races toward commercial reality. But the gap between viral demos and real-world work remains vast.
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HANGZHOU – Unitree Robotics shares surged more than 600% on their first day of trading Wednesday, the same day hundreds of companies gathered in Beijing for the World Robot Conference. The rally turned the Chinese humanoid maker into a market sensation overnight. The company itself warned in its prospectus that large-scale commercial deployment “still faces uncertainty, with a risk that progress will fall short of expectations.”
Unitree humanoids are among the world’s most recognizable. Videos of them performing martial arts dances and kickboxing have drawn millions of views. A customized Unitree model named Wuji now works as a tour guide at the Hangzhou Robot School, greeting visitors with an earnest female voice and calling itself an “intern.” The school, run by Zhejiang University with local government support, provides tailored courses and certification for specific robot jobs. Deputy director Zhao Han said the goal is to help companies “move toward real-world application.”
Yet the gap between demonstration and deployment remains wide. “Training the ‘brain’ is a very difficult task,” Zhu Tianle, an engineer at the robot school, told AFP. “Although we have built up a certain level of technical expertise, enabling robots to understand the world remains a global challenge.” Lian Jye Su, a research analyst at Omdia, put it more bluntly. “As a consumer you might think: my old folks can already talk to ChatGPT, so surely a robot will soon be able to take care of them. The reality is we are extremely far from that future.”