TOKYO — Japan has led the world of robotics for decades. More than 50 years ago, Japanese researchers sparked the public’s imagination with the first robot capable of grasping objects and walking on two legs. In 1984, a team in Japan built a robot that could read sheet music and play the piano. When Honda presented its first humanoid, in 2000, it seemed to have consolidated the country’s leadership.
But now, just as technology investors, startup founders and government officials around the world are betting that artificial intelligence will drive the growth of robotics, that leadership no longer belongs to Japan. It belongs to China.
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Last month, during the Humanoids Summit, a robotics conference held in Tokyo, what could have been a celebration of an industry built over decades of development and investment ended up revolving around another theme: how Japanese companies can carve out space in a market increasingly dominated by Chinese competitors.
Investors encouraged Japanese companies to find niches in which they can compete, even without being able to match Chinese companies’ prices. A dancing robot from China’s Unitree Robotics attracted the biggest audience at the event. Two Japanese companies also used Unitree robots to demonstrate their software.
Chinese manufacturers dominate the supply chain for humanoid robots. Startups like Unitree are producing thousands of humanoids selling for less than US$5,000 each, at a pace and at a price that competitors from Japan and other countries are finding it difficult to keep up with. In the past, Chinese robots relied on Japanese and foreign suppliers for components such as sensors and joints. Today, these parts are also manufactured in China.
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It has become virtually impossible to build a humanoid robot without using components from Chinese companies, said Ming Hsun Lee, head of Greater China automobiles and industrials at BofA Global Research, a division of Bank of America.
“The cost of components in China has dropped too quickly — other countries can’t compete,” Lee said.
But making humanoid robots has proven much easier than finding a practical purpose for them. Even industry executives acknowledge that current models are far from performing the types of work that fueled the enthusiasm around this industry.
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And, although the promise of humanoids has not yet been fully realized, China has established absolute leadership in a segment of robotics that already has economic utility: industrial automation.
China has been manufacturing and installing industrial robots at a pace unparalleled in the rest of the world. By 2024, more than 2 million robots were in operation in Chinese factories, and another 300,000 had been installed — more than the rest of the world combined. Installations of industrial robots have declined in each of the next four markets in size: Japan, the United States, South Korea and Germany.
Earlier this month, Chinese regulators announced a campaign to encourage local governments and state-owned companies to identify industrial applications for humanoid robots.
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China’s leadership in the race to build robots that move and act like humans is closely linked to the growth of its electric vehicle industry. China has become the biggest exporter of electric vehicles thanks to decades of government investment and a strategy aimed at producing virtually every component domestically, from screws to lithium-ion batteries.
Now, many companies that make parts for electric vehicles also supply components to robot manufacturers.
“If a company can make automotive components, it can probably make humanoids,” Lee said.
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American electric car maker Tesla kicked off China’s electric vehicle boom with its giant factory in Shanghai. The network of suppliers that has emerged around Tesla also serves the company’s robotics business.
While Tesla has sought to create a separate supply chain for customers outside of China, it still relies on Chinese manufacturers for at least 70% of its components, according to Lee.
The production lines of Chinese electric vehicle makers including BYD and Xiaomi have also become some of the first places to use humanoid robots in simple tasks such as carrying objects.
Some of these robots were built by UBTech. In Shenzhen, the center of China’s technology industry, the company is surrounded by suppliers, many of which produced parts for electric vehicles before moving into robotics. UBTech can source virtually any component in a matter of hours, said Michael Tam, the company’s chief brand officer.
Many parts are produced by 3D printing.
“I can submit a design at 9 a.m. and have the components printed by noon,” said Tam. “If one supplier tells me they’re at capacity, I just call another one.”
More than 90 percent of UBTech’s robot components come from Chinese companies, Tam said. The main items the company still imports are computer chips used to control the robots’ movements.
Also in Shenzhen, RoboSense, a manufacturer of lidar sensors — light detection and measurement technology used in assisted driving systems — started a business focused on robotics in 2024.
Yang Xiansheng, the company’s vice president of robotics, said that in the past, RoboSense would turn to Japanese companies for parts for its automated production lines.
“That doesn’t happen anymore,” Yang said. “Chinese suppliers now offer many more options.”
Chinese investors have invested more than US$5 billion in humanoid robot startups in 2025, equaling the total invested in the previous five years. In the first five months of this year, investments in the sector have already exceeded last year’s total by almost US$1 billion.
This growth reinforces the growing conviction that humanoid robots could become one of the most important ways in which artificial intelligence will gain a physical presence in the world. Dozens of Chinese startups are working to turn this vision into reality.
In March, Unitree filed to go public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange. This month, the company said it has undergone a regulatory review that could put it on track to begin selling shares within weeks. The offering is expected to be one of the biggest in China this year, and almost 50 other robotics companies are waiting to list their shares in Hong Kong.
Last year, UBTech produced a thousand humanoid robots. This year, it intends to manufacture ten times more.
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