Unitree Robots That Dance, Fight Earn Founder Beijing’s Acclaim

(Bloomberg) — When Chinese President Xi Jinping gathered two dozen of the nation’s business leaders for a summit last week, one of the surprise attendees was a little-known, 34-year-old robot pioneer.

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Wang Xingxing, chief executive officer of Unitree Robotics, was seated in the first row in front of Xi, more central than celebrated founders such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.’s Jack Ma and Tencent Holdings Ltd.’s Pony Ma. The country’s state media showered him with attention after the summit, which included a coveted handshake with the president.

Wang — whose startup makes robots agile enough to dance, work and perform kung fu — is having a moment. Beyond the Xi summit, Unitree was featured in a Carnegie Mellon University research project on robots that perform like Lebron James and other top athletes. Meta Platforms Inc. is discussing cooperating with the company, Bloomberg News reported. And Unitree machines joined humans for a dance extravaganza on one of China’s most prestigious programs, the official CCTV’s Super Bowl-like Lunar New Year special in late January.

Wang has said humanoid robots are evolving faster than even he expected, and such products may become widely deployed in service and manufacturing sectors by 2026 or 2027.

“When what you do conforms to the main theme of the times, good resources will tilt toward you,” he said in an interview with the Chinese news outlet Late Post published last year “Humanoid robots are the wave now.”

Unitree has the potential to do for China’s robotics sector what DeepSeek did in artificial intelligence. Wang and his team have pulled off technological breakthroughs at relatively low cost — with parallels to DeepSeek’s bombshell earlier this year — raising the potential for China to field throngs of robots for industrial, commercial and even military use.

Some American politicians have expressed concerns that such machines may threaten the country’s business and defense interests. In a Wall Street Journal column last year, US lawmaker Katie Britt and Jacob Helberg, then-commissioner of the U.S.–China Economic and Security Review Commission, wrote that Washington must act swiftly to curb the threat of Chinese robots. They name-checked Unitree for its advances in the field.

“Humanoid robots will have both defensive and offensive national-security implications,” they wrote. “The U.S. military is exploring ways to incorporate humanoids into modern warfare, but China has already deployed armed robotics to the battlefield. If the U.S. falls further behind in such critical technology, our troops will face fatal disadvantages on the battlefield.”

In response to requests for comment, Unitree said, “Our products are made for civilian use and we don’t engage in any uses of our products for military purposes.” It also pointed to a joint statement from 2022 in which firms including Unitree and Boston Dynamics Inc. pledged not to weaponize their robots.

Wang got an early start in robots. A native from the southern Chinese city of Ningbo, he designed his first robotic dog, XDog, when he was pursuing a graduate degree between 2013 and 2015 at Shanghai University, according to the Late Post interview. He went to work for Chinese drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co. for three months after his graduation, and founded Unitree in 2016 when he started to get inquiries from both potential buyers and investors for XDog.

He then focused on making the four-legged machines and selling them across the globe at affordable prices — its $2,800 Go2 compares with about $74,500 for a similar product from US rival Boston Dynamics. The startup created its first humanoid robot in 2023. Its latest G1 humanoid features a price tag of $16,000 on its official website, versus the potential $20,000 to $30,000 Elon Musk may ask for Tesla’s Optimus robot in the future.

That low-cost approach has drawn supporters. Unitree has secured investments from backers including food-delivery giant Meituan and venture firm Source Code Capital.

The dual-use potential of Unitree’s robotic dogs attracted scrutiny from Washington after they showed up in a Chinese military drill last year. Videos carried by Chinese state media showed Unitree’s robots equipped with assault rifles in joint exercises by China and Cambodia’s armies in May.

What Bloomberg Intelligence Says:

The appearance of executives from Unitree in the meeting with Xi could increase interest in Chinese robotics startups, which may become the biggest growth drivers for IPOs in China over the next couple of years. Although robotics is an established theme, its applications are expanding with technology advances due to factors such as AI, population trends and the drive across industries for greater efficiency and accuracy.

– Shirley Wong, analyst

Click here for the research.

In the Late Post interview, Wang said one of his inspirations is Lei Jun, whose Xiaomi Corp. started in smartphones and diversified into televisions, luggage and electric vehicles. Unitree now envisions making emerging gadgets and affordable, intelligent robots for homes, factories, and academic institutions.

“The reason I’ve decided to make humanoid robots is that I have become more and more convinced in the viability of AI,” Wang told Late Post. “My company’s business philosophy is that commercial activities should generate reasonable profits. Costs are a key evaluation matrix for making anything in our company, and our core value is to make money.”