In a large warehouse on the outskirts of Shanghai, many humanoid robots are controlled by workers. These robots perform simple tasks like folding T-shirts, making sandwiches, and opening doors.
The robots repeat these tasks repeatedly, helping with different jobs in the warehouse.
The site runs for 17 hours a day. Its goal is to collect much data that helps AgiBot, a Chinese humanoid robot startup.
AgiBot uses this data to train robots. They hope these robots will become common and change how people live, work, and play.
“Just imagine that one day in our own robot factory, our robots are assembling themselves,” said Yao Maoqing, a partner at AgiBot.
Humanoid robots are very important to Beijing as they seek solutions for problems like trade issues with the U.S., a declining population, and slow economic growth. This became clear when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited AgiBot’s robots in Shanghai last month.
During the visit, Xi joked that the robots could even play on a football team.
Another Chinese company that makes humanoid robots, Unitree, was also part of a meeting with Xi earlier this year. Xi encouraged private companies during the meeting to help improve China’s economy.
While the U.S. talks with China about tariffs President Donald Trump put in place to bring back U.S. manufacturing jobs, China aims for a new industrial revolution. In the future, many factory jobs will be done by humanoid robots.
In recent years, Chinese humanoid robots have shown more and more impressive abilities. They’ve done things like flipping, running a half-marathon, and even playing football, just like Xi had joked about.
For the first time, Reuters shares details about how China’s progress in artificial intelligence is helping humanoid robots. This progress is partly due to the success of local companies like DeepSeek and strong government support. It’s allowing robot developers to combine the robots’ advanced hardware with the software needed to make them valid and valuable for the economy.
Reuters talked to over a dozen people, including Chinese robot makers, investors, customers, and experts. They explained that big improvements in building robot “brains” will help these machines go from being interesting to watch to becoming smart, self-learning workers. This could change how the world’s leading manufacturing country, China, works.
According to experts, China plans to stay ahead by focusing on training robots with lots of data and improving its AI models. Some of them said that the strong performance of DeepSeek has been a big help in this effort.
DeepSeek and the Chinese government did not answer questions about their involvement in developing humanoid robots.
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
The Chinese government is giving large amounts of money to support companies that make humanoid robots. Over $20 billion has been given to this sector in the past year. According to official reports, Beijing is also creating a huge fund worth one trillion yuan (about $137 billion) to help new businesses in areas like AI and robotics.
The government is also one of the main buyers of humanoid robots. A Reuters review of many documents shows that in 2024, the government spent 214 million yuan on these robots and related technology, a big jump from just 4.7 million yuan in 2023.
The southern city of Shenzhen has also set up a new 10 billion yuan fund to support AI and robotics as part of the government’s help for the industry.
In Wuhan, companies that make humanoid robots or their parts can get subsidies of up to 5 million yuan. To qualify, they need to meet certain sales and purchase goals. They can also get free office space as part of the support.
In 2023, Beijing’s city government started a robotics fund. It offers up to 30 million yuan to companies that want to speed up building their first robot products.
Some experts believe humanoid robots could develop as electric cars did. Over the past 10 years, electric car prices dropped a lot because more companies started making them and the government gave subsidies. This helped many people in China start using them. The same could happen with humanoid robots.
Ming Hsun Lee, a researcher at Bank of America Securities, said that the average cost to build a humanoid robot will be around $35,000 by the end of this year. But if most parts are made in China, that cost could drop to $17,000 by 2030.
Three Chinese companies that make humanoid robots told Reuters they think the cost could be cut in half within a year. In comparison, if all the main parts come from outside China, the cost of parts for Tesla’s Optimus robots is currently between $50,000 and $60,000. Tesla did not reply to a request for comment.
“With its comprehensive supply chain, China has an edge in lowering the humanoid robot production cost significantly,” Lee told Reuters, estimating that global humanoid robot annual sales could reach 1 million units in 2030. “This industry is still in its baby boom stage.”
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