A troupe of Chinese humanoid robots wowed American television audiences this week — and the company behind them may soon be wowing investors on the Shanghai stock exchange.
Eight robots made by Unitree Robotics performed a synchronized dance routine on America's Got Talent, earning a unanimous vote from judges to advance to the next round. The performance was led by Wu Yufei, a 26-year-old engineer from Sichuan Province in southwestern China, and quickly drew attention on social media as a vivid demonstration of how far consumer-ready humanoid robotics has come.
From the stage to the stock market
The television moment comes at a pivotal juncture for Unitree. On June 1, the Hangzhou-based startup became the first company in China's humanoid robotics sector to pass IPO review, clearing the way for a planned listing on Shanghai's STAR board. The company is seeking to raise 4.2 billion yuan — roughly $620 million — with the majority of proceeds earmarked for developing what the industry calls the robot "brain": the embodied AI models that determine how machines perceive and respond to the physical world.
The timing of the IPO signals a broader shift in the sector. For the past two years, the race among Chinese robotics startups was largely about engineering milestones — could a robot stand, walk, grab an object? That phase is giving way to a harder question: can these machines actually generate revenue in real-world settings like factories, warehouses, and eventually homes?
Nvidia partnership raises global profile
Unitree's international profile received another boost this week when Nvidia announced a research partnership at its GTC conference in Taipei. The collaboration pairs Unitree's nearly six-foot-tall H2 humanoid with Nvidia's Jetson Thor computing hardware, which includes the company's Blackwell GPU for on-device AI processing. The package, which also integrates Nvidia's Isaac GR00T AI models, is aimed at university and research institutions — with institutions including Stanford, ETH Zurich, and UC San Diego's robotics lab already signed on.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, speaking at Computex 2026, framed the venture as an effort to democratize frontier robotics research. An upgraded version of the H2, called the H2 Plus, is slated for public availability in October.
Growing pains behind the spotlight
Despite the momentum, Unitree's own IPO filings paint a more complicated picture. The company expects first-half 2026 revenue of between 1.05 billion and 1.13 billion yuan, up roughly 35–45% year-on-year. But profitability has softened: net profit after non-recurring items is projected to fall by as much as 22% compared to the same period last year, which the company attributed to a higher revenue base, fading industry hype, and intensifying competition.
That competition is formidable. Tesla's Optimus Gen-3 is already in small-scale production. Xiaomi plans to deploy 2,000 units of its CyberOne robot in its own car factories this year, and XPeng's humanoid is targeting mass production by the end of 2026. Unlike Unitree, these companies have years of manufacturing experience and captive training environments for their robots.
Unitree's current business model — selling hardware platforms to downstream developers rather than deploying finished solutions — keeps the company lean but exposed. A pilot with Japan Airlines, in which a third-party integrator is using Unitree robots for luggage handling and cargo transfer, runs until 2028. The company is still selling what analysts describe as development infrastructure, not finished productivity tools.
What the IPO milestone means for the sector
Industry analysts watching the space see Unitree's listing as a demarcation point. Companies that proved robots could move have now entered a phase where they must prove robots can work. Capital flows in China's robotics sector have already shifted accordingly — with investors in early 2026 directing more money toward enabling technologies: training data collection platforms, dexterous robotic hands, and embodied AI brain models, rather than robot bodies alone.
For a Taipei audience watching these developments closely, the week's events carry particular resonance. Nvidia's choice of Taiwan as the venue to announce its Unitree partnership — alongside broader announcements at Computex — underscores the island's continued centrality to the global AI hardware supply chain, even as Chinese robotics companies push aggressively onto the world stage. （Related： Taiwan's Ennostar, TSMC Bet on Micro LED to Power Nvidia's AI Clusters ｜ Latest ）
Sources: Xinhua News Agency, CNBC, 36Kr English
