China’s World-Record Robot Maker Lists But U.S. Investors Have to Get Creative to Invest

Robot maker Unitree Robotics (SH:688836) is due to list in Shanghai on Wednesday, and looks set to see a massive pop in its stock.

“Perps” derived from pending Unitree shares are already trading on crypto exchanges such as Hyperliquid. The trading in Unitree perpetual futures indicates, as I write, a price of $99.70. That’s four times the listing price.

Those crypto derivatives do not represent actual trading, and it remains to be seen if the company can hold onto those stock gains. But investors are certainly hotly awaiting the offer. The company says its retail tranche is oversubscribed to the tune of 8,000 times.

We also saw a keenly awaited listing for Chinese memory-chip maker CXMT (SH:688825) in July, with a pre-listing perp coming within 2.5% of its open price. As I explained in my column at the time, CXMT jumped 466% on debut to become the largest mainland listing. It has held those gains and then some, to close today at C¥59.19, up 583.5% from its C¥8.66 offer price.

IPO Details

Unitree has priced its initial public offering (IPO) at C¥150.80 ($22.36) per share, and is issuing 40.45 million new shares or 10% of its outstanding stock in the listing. That means the Hangzhou-based company is raising C¥6.1 billion ($904.7 million), and has a valuation of around C¥61.0 billion ($9.0 billion).

Unitree has a long list of backers, even if its robots have so far featured more in social media than in real-life everyday applications. Chinese food-delivery app Meituan (MPNGF) (HK:3690) is its biggest outside investor with a 9.65% stake, but it also has backing from entertainment conglomerate Tencent Holdings (TCEHY) (HK:0700), e-commerce leader Alibaba Group Holding (BABA) (HK:9988), telecom China Mobile (HK:0941) and carmaker Geely Automobile Holdings (GELHY) (HK:0175).

The company’s founder, Wang Xingxing, has already built a $2.4 billion fortune, according to Forbes, based on the IPO price. That would obviously leap if the shares soar in value.

First Major Humanoid Robot Maker to List

Unitree, officially incorporated as Yushu Technology Co., is the first major maker of humanoid robots to list in China. It also has a line of robotic “dogs” including wheeled and four-legged versions.

The company has been all over social media, and you’re highly likely to have seen one of its robots in action.

Unitree robots have been featured at events such as the 2023 Super Bowl, where singer Jason Derulo melded a troupe of live dancers with a crew of Go1 robot dogs. You can see highlights of the performance here on TikTok.

To maximize the publicity surrounding the listing, Unitree unveiled a new “Superman” robot on Monday, which the company says can outrun Usain Bolt and outjump Christopher Spell, world-record holders in the 100-meter sprint and standing high jump, respectively.

Faster Than Usain Bolt

The Superman prototype can hit a top speed of 12.66 meters per second, outdoing the 12.43 pace set by Bolt in 2009, and can clear a 2 meter (6 feet 7 inches) height from a standing jump, above the 1.7 meter (5 feet 7 inches) record set in 2021.

You can see video of the Superman robot “breaking the limits of humanity,” as the company puts it, here.

Unitree could teach a master class in generating publicity from brief footage of its robots in action. The top speed and max height haven’t been tested independently.

For instance, the company claims to have taken part in the “official rehearsals” of the 2022 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. But its robots did not feature in the ceremony in the end, and the

is a mass testing at a Unitree factory.

There’s no doubt, though, that Unitree robots are literally improving in leaps and bounds. It is making top-performing models that improve in terms of function with every iteration.

Passed by Chinese Rival for Units Shipped

Unitree was for the first half of the year surpassed by rival Chinese ‘bot maker AgiBot in terms of humanoid-robot shipments, with AgiBot commanding 44% market share with 8,400 units sold to Unitree’s 31% and 5,900 machines, according to industry tracker Smart Analytics Global (SAG). Still, the market is expanding rapidly, with total shipments likely to hit 60,000 units for full-year 2026, up almost triple year on year.

The future of the industry likely hinges on industrial adoption. For 1H 2026, commercial and industrial applications made up some 70% of sales, up from 50% the same time in 2025. Manufacturing, logistics and warehouses represent the key paths to commercialization, SAG stated.

Chinese vendors represent 97% of the total shipments of humanoid robots, while China accounts for around 85% of global demand. Total units sold will likely rise to 500,000 units by 2030, with revenue rising from $1.6 billion in 2026 to north of $7.0 billion, household and companion usage will likely take longer to evolve.

“SAG does not expect general-purpose home-service humanoid robots to reach meaningful mass-market scale within the next five years,” SAG author Linda Sui wrote in an August 10 report on the state of the industry.

Safety Concerns and U.S. Restrictions

Safety, regulatory and geopolitical risks could hold back deployment of AI-driven robots.

“Moving from ‘robots that can demonstrate’ toward ‘robots that can reliably work’ will be critical to unlocking broader commercial adoption,” Sui stated.

Unitree robots are essentially off-limits to U.S. purchasers. The Pentagon in June added Unitree to a list of Chinese military companies operating in the United States, as a “military-civil fusion contributor” to China’s defense industry, barring military purchases. The Federal Communications Commission then in July added foreign-made “advanced robotic devices” to a banned list of equipment that pose an “unacceptable risk” to national security, essentially outlawing future purchases of Unitree robots in the United States.

Unitree got 13.3% of its sales from the United States at last count. It says its existing humanoid and canine robots already have FCC approval but future models could be excluded from U.S. sales.

China will likely remain the epicenter of the industry, because of a supportive regulatory environment, the lack of cross-border security concerns, and because China’s massive manufacturing base allows for speedy testing.

Unitree Shares Hard to Access Directly

Unitree stock will be as hard to access as its robots for U.S. companies and citizens.

Its Shanghai “A shares” will initially only be available to the handful of investors that have a quota to buy mainland-listed stock. So most U.S. investors will not be able to buy the stock directly.

They can, however, buy into U.S.-listed exchange-traded funds (ETFs) tracking A share stocks.

U.S. investors may be able to access the Chinese robotics sector via the KraneShares Humanoid Robotics and Physical AI ETF (KOID). That ETF tracks the worldwide MerQube Global Humanoid and Physical AI Index, which as of the end of June had 29.9% of assets invested in the United States, 26.6% in China, and 14.3% in Japan.

KraneShares says Unitree will be a key addition as an “integrator” of robotics technology, the smallest exposure among the various investment buckets in KOID, with an 8% allocation. The vast majority of the fund (74%) is currently invested in robot “body” makers, with another 18% devoted to “brain” robot-software designers.

While that offers diversified country exposure, the KraneShares SSSE STAR Market 50 Index (KSTR) tracks the 50-largest and most-liquid stocks on the STAR Market – full name the Science and Technology Innovation Board – that is intended to be Shanghai’s version of a Nasdaq-like exchange. The KraneShares product tracks the SSE STAR 50 Index, compiled by investment bank China International Capital Corp. (HK:3908).

It remains to be seen if Unitree becomes one of the 50 biggest names on the STAR Market. The company would normally have to be listed for at least six months before inclusion, or three months if it ranks among the five most-active listings by daily market value.

A $9 billion valuation would almost certainly result in the company being included at the December 2026 quarterly review. But it would likely rank among the top-five stocks by market cap if it does see its market capitalization catapult to somewhere around C¥245 billion ($36 billion).

The five largest STAR Market listings are: Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp. (SMIC) (HK:0981), at C¥878.1 billion, the “Nvidia of China,” chip designer Cambricon Technologies (SH:688256), at C¥726.3 billion, fabless chipset designer Hygon Information Technology (SH:688041) at C¥671.3 billion, and Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China (AMEC) (SH:688012), at C¥371.5 billion, and integrated-circuit maker Montage Technology (SH:688008), at C¥277.1 billion.

Unitree could therefore qualify for early inclusion. But that would depend on whether it can retain any first-day trading gains. CXMT has not yet been included in the Star 50 index after its July debut.

Second Edition of ‘Robot Olympics’

Starting on Saturday, Beijing is due to host the second edition of the World Humanoid Robot Games from August 22 to 26, at the speed-skating venue built for the 2022 winter Olympics. A total 666 teams from 16 nations will compete across 30 sporting events, according to the state-run Global Times, with another 21 scenario-based events like industrial assembly, home services and emergency rescue.

This time last year, Unitree’s H1 robot won the first event, the 1,500-meter race, at the first installment of the “Robot Olympics.” The company also picked up golds in the 400 meters, 100 meter hurdles and 4 x 100 meter relay.

But last year’s event also featured laughable moments such as frequent robot pileups during the soccer matches, a kickboxing robot that knocked itself down and out with a missed roundhouse kick, and robots that lost parts during the running races.

This year will include events such as a dedicated “dexterous hand” competition, as well as tests modelled on factories, hotels and homes.

“Last year, it was about whether they could run to the finish line,” researcher Wang Peng told the Global Times. “This year, it’s about whether they can get the job done.”

At the time of publication, McMillan had no positions in any securities mentioned.