Wonders and woes of China’s robotics industry

Hello, I’m Anniek Bao, a China economy and business reporter, filling in for Evelyn this week. Welcome to another edition of The China Connection.

This week, I look at how the World Robot Conference put China’s ambitions for humanoid robots on full display, even as engineers and investors acknowledge that integrating them into everyday life is still a distant prospect.

This report is from this week’s CNBC’s The China Connection newsletter, which brings you insights and analysis on what’s driving the world’s second-largest economy. Like what you see? You can subscribe here.

At the World Robot Conference in Beijing, which concluded Tuesday, the mood was a blend of optimism and caution: Businesses showed off increasingly lifelike humanoid robots even as they conceded that technological gaps keeping these machines from mainstream usage remain wide.

Thousands turned up to watch humanoid robots to perform an array of unusual feats: from clumsily serving popcorn and drinks, spinning handkerchiefs, sparring in a boxing ring to playing chess and showcasing football skills.

But none of these feats amounted to a technological breakthrough. While there have been improvements in design, maneuverability and appearance, the androids still struggle to process and respond to their surroundings, a limitation that keeps them from most real-life workplace roles.

So far, their commercial use is mostly confined to guiding visitors at exhibition halls, shopping malls and, more recently, testing at factories for repetitive tasks like sorting materials and performing quality checks.

“When will humanoid robots be able to do 80% of the physical work that human can do? That’s decades away,” said Jay Huang, managing director and head of Asia industrial technologies sector at Bernstein.

“But what we will see is these individual tasks, like material handling, being multiplied into a much bigger scale. They can be used in very different format, different settings,” Huang added.

Some tasks like using a robot to make a bed are still in the “very early” stage, with low success rate, Huang said, “but that’s the right direction to push the industry forward.”

Take PsiBot’s mahjong-playing droid displayed at the event: It still misidentifies tiles, often confuses the game’s rules and plays at a relatively slow pace, according to local media reports.

The technological bottleneck for large-scale integration of humanoids into daily life stems from a lack of cutting-edge AI models and insufficient training data, said Bob Chen, economist at Shanghai-based FG Venture. The venture-capital firm has invested in robotics startups including Hangzhou-based DEEP Robotics that makes quadruped-robots — machines that mimic movements of four-legged creatures.

Androids rely on vast troves of motion-capture, visual, tactile and audio data, along with simulations, to build the sensory and behavioral maps they need to navigate and interact in the real world.

“Large language models have rather narrow function: language in, language out. But robots require far more complex, multimodal inputs, and their outputs are not words but actions and behaviors,” said Chen, according to CNBC’s translation of his comments in Mandarin.

Several startups in China have invested in building “data factories,” hiring people to operate robots or wearables to capture machine-interaction data to train bots.

Race for adoption

Humanoid robots are emerging as another front in China’s tech rivalry with the U.S.— where they could prevail with cheaper prices and faster deployment.

“China, the U.S. and other countries are playing on a quite leveled playing field,” Huang said. “Just like in electric vehicles, autonomous driving, in humanoid robots, China acts extremely fast in product and use-case multiplication, while U.S. players seem to shoot for the holy-grail solution.”

In robot manufacturing, Tesla’s humanoid project Optimus appears to be leading in the U.S., with CEO Elon Musk saying the company plans to produce about 5,000 units this year.

While Musk’s ambitious plans could give it a leg up on other American competitors that have yet to hit the mass market, Chinese companies have been racing to make their models more affordable.

They are also believed to have been undercutting global peers in terms of price, thanks to superior cost controls. That’s despite the real-world applications of robots remaining uncertain.

In the lead up to the WRC, Unitree rolled out its third version of R1 model, priced at 39,900 yuan ($5,249) on e-commerce site JD.com, significantly cheaper than the its other models. The company’s H1 model was sold for 650,000 yuan per unit and G1 robot for 99,000 yuan.

At the conference, prices for a humanoid robot ranged from tens of thousands of yuan to over 100,000 yuan, and the high-end models capable of more complex tasks were priced above 500,000 yuan.

UniX AI touted its entry-level humanoid droids at just 88,000 yuan each. Shenzhen-based Engine AI has announced plans for a rival model starting at 38,500 yuan.

Some U.S. companies such as Apptronik could see their attempt to rival Chinese humanoid robots be further undercut by U.S. tariffs as they still rely on some components from China.

China already has an edge in integrating machinery into factory workflows and, in many cases, is outpacing rivals in marrying artificial intelligence with robotics, said Arthur Kroeber, founding partner of China-focused economic research firm Gavekal Dragonomics.

Kroeber predicts that within two to four years, Chinese factories will achieve major efficiency gains across industries by combining top-tier industrial robots with AI systems that make them far more effective in varied settings.

Some of UBTech Robotics’ humanlike droids have been deployed at factories of carmakers BYD and Geely, at electronics manufacturer Foxconn and logistics giant SF Delivery, Chinese state media reported in April.

However, during trainings, humanoid robots moved slowly, operating at just 20% of human efficiency, the report pointed out.

“Enabling humanoid robots to map their moving routes, speed up movements and operate for long periods of time in uncomfortable temperature environments still requires vast amounts of data,” it said.

While widespread deployment of humanoid robots that enhance productivity might still be a distant prospect, Chinese companies are pushing ahead as their tech race with the U.S. heats up.

Jeff Moon, founder and president of China Moon Strategies and former assistant U.S. trade representative for China, said the U.S. and China’s overtures are well-choreographed and happening in a planned sequence, but they won’t solve many of the underlying problems between the two countries.

Graham Allison, Harvard professor and former assistant secretary of defense, said he expects a “grand rapprochement” or friendship between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, especially as Trump needs a strong economy heading into the midterm elections.

Hao Hong, managing partner and CIO of Lotus Asset Management, said traders and fund managers are not very concerned about weakening fundamentals in the Chinese markets as long as liquidity remains strong.

China and Hong Kong stocks rose as Asian markets tracked gains on Wall Street after the latest U.S. inflation data raised expectations that the Federal Reserve could cut interest rates next month.

Mainland China’s CSI 300 added 0.74%, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index — which includes major Chinese companies — had gained 2.2% as of 2:22 p.m. local time (2:22 a.m. ET). The mainland benchmark is up over 6% year to date, data from LSEG showed.

The Hang Seng Tech index, which tracks the some of the largest mainland Chinese technology companies listed in Hong Kong, rose over 2%, lifted by Tencent Music Entertainment, which surged over 14%, a day after the company beat estimates for second-quarter revenue and profit.

China’s 10-year government bond yield currently stands at 1.723%.

Aug 14: NetEase, JD.com June-quarter earnings

Aug 14-17: World Humanoid Robot Games

Aug 15: Urban investment, industrial output and retail sales, urban unemployment rate, house prices for July

Aug 19: Xiaomi, Xpeng June-quarter earnings