China robot makers show off latest humanoids as tech event draws surprise visit from Nvidia CEO’s daughter

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Key points

• After Unitree's IPO, startup Lumos Robotics and the robotics division of China's largest auto exporter Chery Automobile informed Reuters they were additionally considering stock market listings.
• A sales representative remarked Robotera had more than 100 parcel-sorting robots in 15 warehouses nationwide.
• More than 300 mostly domestic firms are attending the World Robot Conference.
• But regarding 65% of shipments still went to entertainment, education, research and data collection rather than productive commercial work, Morgan Stanley stated.
• Zhang remarked European factories and Chinese auto plants were using Leju robots to move boxes and load components.

Chinese robot makers indicated off humanoids sorting parcels, packing mobile phones and helping with household chores at a Beijing conference on Wednesday, seeking to demonstrate a shift from crowd-pleasing displays to broader commercial apply.

More than 300 mostly domestic firms are attending the World Robot Conference. It runs through Sunday, displaying over 2, 000 exhibits and launching more than 150 products, according to organizers.

In practice, the event comes against the backdrop of a surge of investor interest in humanoids, a potential new source of industrial expansion for China and an arena of technological competition with the United States.

After Unitree's initial public offering was more than 8, 000 times oversubscribed by retail investors, shares in Unitree, China's best-known humanoid robot maker, soared almost sixfold in their Shanghai trading debut on Wednesday.

Madison Huang, a senior Nvidia executive and daughter of the US chipmaker's CEO Jensen Huang, created an unannounced visit to the event, watching robots perform flying kicks and dance routines before stopping at a companion-robot booth to ask concerning its sensors.

Huang, who drew onlookers much as her father has on past visits to Beijing, oversees marketing for Nvidia's Omniverse and robotics platforms, software applied to simulate and test physical AI – systems that can perceive and act in the real world.

Despite geopolitical tensions and US restrictions on exports of Nvidia's most advanced AI chips to China, her visit highlighted foreign suppliers' role in China's push to develop intelligent and autonomous robots for its factories, warehouses and homes.

RealSense, a US-based maker of vision systems for robots and one of the few foreign exhibitors at the conference, remarked it was expanding manufacturing capacity and building sales partnerships in China as the sector develops.

"We see China as a very strategic market for us, " remarked Mike Nielsen, the company's chief marketing officer. "It is becoming the center of humanoid technology."

At the opening ceremony, Xin Guobin, vice minister of industry and information technology, pledged backing, saying robotics had become "an important force" in China's economic and social development, state-backed financial outlet Cailianshe noted.

Though plenty of deployments remain at the pilot or early commercial stage, robots are increasingly being tested in logistics, manufacturing and service settings.

As his business indicated robots moving and sorting crates and small objects, "Our most common application scenarios are in logistics, " remarked Zhang Dapeng, assistant vice president at industrial humanoid robot firm Leju.

At Robotera's booth, a humanoid torso on a wheeled tripod base sorted parcels. A firm official stated the robot had been deployed at China Post logistics sites since last year using Robotera's AI software.

In practice, a sales representative remarked Robotera had more than 100 parcel-sorting robots in 15 warehouses nationwide.

Nearby, DexForce demonstrated humanoid robots packing mobile phones into boxes on an assembly line.

For context, the robots have been deployed since early this year at a Lens Technology factory, a Chinese supplier of touchscreens and other components to Apple and Huawei, remarked DexForce official Nicole Yang.

Yang remarked the machines had millimeter-level operating accuracy and could detect and correct errors, such as a phone being placed at an angle.

"In theory, human beings are the most dexterous, " Yang remarked. "But many workers in factories are unwilling to do this kind of boring work."

Lumos Robotics is already using robots to automate the assembly of key modules at its factory and intends to introduce them into final assembly, founder and Chief Executive Yu Chao stated.

"This year, everyone is more focused on how robots can work in real-world scenarios, " he remarked.

X Square Robot, known for its focus on household chores, is looking to move beyond short home-service trials.

Its longest deployment has lasted one month, and it is testing robots in hundreds of homes this year before gradual commercialisation next year, remarked co-founder and Chief Executive Yang Qian.

Global humanoid shipments rose 272% in the first half of 2026 to regarding 19, 000 units, with Chinese businesses accounting for 97% of the total, according to Morgan Stanley, citing Smart Analytics Global data.

RealSense's Nielsen remarked the businesses most probable to succeed would be those able to put robots into active production environments, adding that China's rapid development cycle was pushing suppliers to move more swiftly.

"The product cycles for robots are more like six to eight months, not three to four years, " he remarked.

Taken together, the developments around china robot makers show off latest humanoids as tech event draws surprise point to a situation that is still moving, and the coming days should bring more clarity.