China Sets Three Criteria for Humanoid Robot IPOs, Few Startups May Qualify

The criteria require humanoid applicants to have sustainable revenue and commercial orders, to narrow losses — with one source saying a three-year forecast is needed — and to possess core technology such as a robotic brain or hands. Even if a startup needs to meet only two of the three criteria, as one source indicated, it is unclear which, if any, of the companies can do so. Expectations have fallen to just a handful, or none, of these startups reaching public markets, the sources said.

At least two dozen humanoid-related embodied AI companies have filed to list in Hong Kong alone, according to two sources. Hong Kong began allowing technology companies to file confidentially for IPOs in May 2025. The Hong Kong stock exchange and the CSRC did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mainland Chinese companies seeking a Hong Kong listing also need the CSRC's approval.

Scrutiny of China's growing number of humanoid robot startups and their fast-rising valuations, supported by government and private-sector funds, has increased over the last several weeks. Unitree, the industry's posterchild, received a regulatory fast track to its Shanghai listing on Aug. 19 as the World Robot Conference opened in Beijing. But in a keynote the next day, founder Wang Xingxing cautioned that commercialization beyond dancing robots remained years away. That sharpened a debate in subsequent weeks over what humanoids can actually do and whether industry startups are making money.

China now has well over 100 humanoid companies, which fall under the national push for embodied AI. The term received Beijing's support in the last two annual government work reports, although authorities have warned of a bubble in the humanoid robot industry. Investment in the sector hit 47.09 billion yuan ($6.95 billion) in the second quarter, more than double the first quarter and up more than six times from a year earlier, according to industry data provider Xiniu.

Unitree raised about 6.1 billion yuan ($905 million) in its Aug. 19 IPO, with its Shanghai-listed shares surging more than 460% in their debut to close at 845 yuan. As of Monday, the stock had nearly halved to 459.65 yuan a share. Hong Kong-listed Ubtech has also fallen more than 40% this year. The company, which went public in December 2023, still reported an operating loss of 279 million yuan for the first half of this year. The share price declines contrast with the flood of capital into humanoid robotics companies over the past 12 months or so. The technology, often called physical AI in China, has been seen as a way for early-stage investors to benefit from the surge of interest in artificial intelligence models.

Rhodium Group analysis this month found that China's AI companies generate only about 10% of the revenue of Anthropic and OpenAI. The ratio of valuation to revenue, especially for Chinese AI startups Moonshot and DeepSeek, was far higher than their U.S. rivals, the report said. While expectations grow for IPOs by U.S. AI giants, chipmaker AMD said Monday it is acquiring World Labs for $8.2 billion in a stock deal. World Labs, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, is building AI models for creating virtual 3D environments frequently used in humanoid robot development.