Driven by the integration of many cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, automatic control, and bionic machinery, humanoid robots are gradually moving from science fiction concepts to practical applications, and have become the core carriers leading the transformation of intelligent manufacturing and intelligent services. According to the data released by the New Strategic Humanoid Robot Industry Research Institute in April 2025, up to now, there are more than 300 humanoid robot ontology companies in the world, of which more than 150 are Chinese companies, accounting for more than 50%. This not only shows the strong expansion trend of Chinese enterprises in this field, but also highlights their strategic frontier position in the new round of global intelligent manufacturing competition.
Figure: Global distribution of humanoid robot ontology enterprises
Ⅰ. The industrial cluster effect is beginning to appear, and China's three major cities are leading the development of humanoid robots
From the perspective of regional distribution, the Chinese humanoid robot industry presents a typical "head city agglomeration" characteristics. Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have formed the country's leading R&D and industrialization core areas.
Relying on the technical resources of Tsinghua University, Peking University, Chinese Academy of Sciences and other universities and scientific research institutions, Beijing has incubated a number of technology-oriented enterprises such as Xiaomi Robot, Xingdong Era, Galaxy General, and Ruierman Intelligence. These enterprises continue to tackle key subsystems such as intelligent perception, gait control, and language interaction, which is an important force to promote China's humanoid robots from technical verification to actual implementation.
Shanghai, with its open industrial policy and capital environment, has attracted innovative enterprises such as Zhiyuan Robotics, Fourier Intelligence, and Kepler Robotics. They not only have strong system integration and commercialization capabilities, but also continue to innovate in product design, interactive interface, cloud control, etc., and are committed to creating humanoid robot products with higher availability and friendliness.
As an important town in China's electronic information industry, Shenzhen has a complete supporting capacity for the robot industry chain. UBTECH, DOBOT, Leju, Engine AI, Digital Huaxia, Pacini Perception and other enterprises have developed rapidly here, and their products have begun to be applied to multiple scenarios such as education and training, exhibition and guide, and commercial reception, showing strong mass production capacity and market expansion potential.
According to incomplete statistics, Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen account for more than 60% of the total number of humanoid robot ontology enterprises in the country. This agglomeration effect is conducive to collaborative innovation of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain, strengthening resource integration, shortening the product iteration cycle, and enhancing the overall industrial competitiveness.
Figure: The layout and development of Chinese humanoid robot industry
Ⅱ. Diversified enterprises compete for the track, and start-ups and cross-border forces rise strongly
At present, humanoid robot ontology enterprises show an obvious diversified pattern. According to the Institute for New Strategies:
- About 42% of start-ups are established less than five years ago. Such enterprises have technical flexibility and market sensitivity, and can often quickly find technological breakthroughs in key segmentation scenarios and launch differentiated products.
- Cross-border enterprises from home appliances, automobiles, and the Internet accounted for 11%. For example, Midea has integrated automatic control of home appliances and cloud platform technology to deploy household service robots; BYD and CATL have challenged the field of embodied intelligence with their own accumulation in power systems, structural parts, and autonomous driving.
- 38% of companies focus on the research and development of robot systems. These companies usually have strong capabilities in embedded system design, motion control algorithms, and servo drive technology, and can quickly adapt to different use scenarios.
- Core component companies account for 9%, although the proportion is relatively small, but they play a decisive role in key links (such as high-precision reducers, sensors, controllers, etc.), which is the basis for the industry to achieve independent control.
Ⅲ. Technical challenges and commercialization paths have become the two major pain points
While Chinese companies excel in terms of volume and innovation dynamism, they also face several key challenges:
1. The core components rely on imports, and it will take time for technology to become independentAt present, core components such as high-precision reducers (such as RV and harmonic reducers), servo motors, and high-end sensors are still mainly dependent on imports. In particular, the high-precision reducer market, which is dominated by Nabtesco of Japan, has long controlled the key technical threshold of "joint flexibility" of humanoid robots.
Although domestic enterprises such as Green Harmonic, Julun Intelligence, and Shuanghuan Transmission have made some technological progress, there are still gaps in key parameters such as stability, batch consistency, and long life, which affect the performance and reliability of the whole machine.
2. The business model is vague, and the large-scale implementation is still in the early stage
At present, humanoid robots are mainly used in education, service, display and other fields, but there are generally problems of high cost, single function and lack of practicability. For example:
- In industrial scenarios, humanoid robots are still difficult to compete with traditional six-axis industrial robots, which are more efficient and stable in tasks such as handling and welding.
- In the service industry, although humanoid robots can realize the functions of welcoming and guiding guests in shopping malls and hotels, the current accuracy of speech recognition and body coordination still limit their wide replacement of manpower.
The lack of clear "rigid demand application scenarios" and "replicable business models" is the key bottleneck restricting the industry from entering explosive growth.
3. The industry is highly competitive, and resource fragmentation leads to duplicate investment
At present, a large number of enterprises compete around "complete machine development", and the technical paths are highly overlapping, resulting in a waste of R&D resources. For example, different companies are developing human-shaped joint systems based on the same type of servo drive at the same time, or repeatedly building similar control algorithm platforms, but fail to form a collaborative and win-win mechanism.
In addition, the shortage of talents has also become a potential hidden danger that restricts the development of the industry. There is an extreme shortage of compound engineers with system integration capabilities and experience in software and hardware collaboration, resulting in "R&D bottlenecks" in the rapid expansion of enterprises.
Figure: Competitive landscape of the humanoid robot market
Ⅳ. Policy support and alliance mechanisms to promote coordinated development
In order to promote the collaborative innovation and healthy development of the industry, many provinces and cities have successively introduced support policies, covering industrial funds, land support, tax incentives, etc. For example:
- Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Anhui and other places have established humanoid robot industrial parks;
- Some provinces have set up special funds to support the R&D and technology transformation of key components;
- Universities and leading enterprises around the world jointly build laboratories and joint R&D centers to provide continuous impetus for enterprise technology upgrading.
In addition, the establishment of industrial organizations such as the Humanoid Robot Scene Application Alliance has also promoted the collaborative cooperation between the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. By establishing technical standards, sharing scenario data, and jointly building test platforms, the alliance mechanism can help enhance the overall competitiveness of the industry and reduce duplication of investment.
Ⅴ. Looking to the future: Chinese enterprises need to step out of the three-step chess of "innovation-collaboration-scenario"
In order to achieve long-term leadership in the global competition for humanoid robots, Chinese enterprises need to play the three cards of "innovation-driven", "collaborative ecology" and "scene landing".
1. Technological innovation: increase investment in core components, overcome bottlenecks such as high-precision reducers, force sensors, and AI motion control, and improve robot motion stability and human-computer interaction experience;
2. Industrial collaboration: build an integrated innovation platform of "production, education, research and application", promote the vertical collaboration of chips, structural parts, and complete machine enterprises, and form a complete ecological chain from basic devices to system applications;
3. Deep cultivation of scenarios: Strengthen joint innovation with industry users, deeply explore the needs of education, medical care, health care, manufacturing and other segments, promote humanoid robots to "move from display to practicality", and open up the last mile of large-scale business models.
Conclusion
As the culmination of the integration of intelligent manufacturing, artificial intelligence and flexible machinery, humanoid robots are standing at the cusp of scientific and technological development. Chinese enterprises account for half of the global enterprises, showing strong industrial agglomeration and market potential. However, what will really determine success or failure in the future will be the comprehensive contest of technical strength, business model and industrial synergy.
Only through continuous innovation, coordinated development, and scenario implementation can Chinese enterprises lead the global humanoid robot industry into the next stage of development and lay a solid foundation for the future intelligent era of human-machine integration.
