While the world is paying attention to the AI chatbot “Deepseek,” another innovative technology is drawing attention in China. It is a humanoid robot developed by Chinese robot start-up Unitree. At the Spring Festival Gala Show in 2025, Unitree’s humanoid robots received great attention by performing traditional dances with human dancers. Unitree’s latest humanoid robot “H1” was put into the performance, directed by famous Chinese film director Zhang Yimou.
A total of 16 robots and 16 dancers participated in the performance and danced “New Yanggeo,” a traditional dance in northeastern China. The robots performed high-level movements perfectly, such as throwing handkerchiefs and receiving them again, drawing cheers from the audience.
This collaborative performance between humans and robots was seen as a highlight of the Spring Festival Gala Show as a scene that symbolizes China’s advancement in advanced robot technology. The Spring Festival Gala Show is a popular program watched by Chinese people Lunar New Year, with 1 billion viewers. Founded in 2016, Unity stands out in the development of quadruped walking robots and humanoid robots. After finishing his studies at Zhejiang University of Technology and Shanghai University, founder Wang Xing-hsing worked for DJI, the world’s largest drone company, and founded Unity with his passion for robot development. Currently, Unity is valued at about 1.5 trillion won.
Unitree started with the early development of machine dock and became the first in the industry to commercialize the world’s first high-performance four-legged walking robot publicly.
At the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games, Unitri’s machine dog (four-legged walking robot) played the role of a transport agent for discus throwing. The two four-legged walking robots busily traveled throughout the stadium to increase efficiency of the game. When an athlete throws a discus, the machine dog moves quickly to the target point. The robot was then operated by placing the discus on the robot’s back and returning it to the players. After completing his mission, he made headlines by showing himself standing on one side of the stadium in a “down” position and waiting for the next command.
In December 2024, Wang Xing Xing Xing released a demonstration video of his new machine-only product “B2-W,” which caused a great repercussion around the world. In particular, Tesla founder Elon Musk shared the video and left a comment saying, “The future war is the war of drones.”
What’s more surprising is that Unitri’s Go2 model has been priced at just 9,997 yuan, which has succeeded in lowering the price of the consumer machine dock to less than 10,000 yuan.
In May last year, Unity released the basic model for 99,000 yuan after announcing the humanoid robot Unitree G1. It boasts excellent cost-effectiveness at a very low price compared to other humanoid robots that can range from hundreds of thousands to millions of yuan. The G1 is priced at only one-twentieth of Tesla’s similar-spec model, Optimus.
At the 2024 CES, Jensen Huang once predicted that the “CHAT GPT moment” of general-purpose humanoid robots will come soon, saying that the next frontier of artificial intelligence is physical AI. According to Goldman Sachs’ forecast, the humanoid robot market is expected to reach 154 billion dollars by 2035. Currently, there are 716,700 registered robot companies in China.
The “Chinese cost-effectiveness strategy,” which was applied to the manufacturing and small home appliance markets in the past, will be reenacted in the robot field. This will provide opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises and start-up developers to use robot technology, which was close to the exclusive property of expensive research institutes and large corporations, with high performance and low price. It is also expected to be quickly introduced into various industries by increasing the utilization of AI robots in daily life and industrial sites.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
