China built robots that can do backflips – but can they make money?

An exhibitor demonstrates a Unitree Robotics G1 humanoid robot at the Humanoids Summit in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, May 29, 2026. Kiyoshi Ota | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesAs retail excitement around the listing of China's best-known humanoid maker, Unitree Robotics, reaches fever pitch, skeptics are questioning how long it will take before these robots can move beyond running and acrobatics to perform genuinely useful work.The Hangzhou-based startup priced its IPO at 150.8 yuan ($22.4) a share, raising $900 million and valuing the company at 61 billion yuan, or about $9 billion. Investors expect a big first-day pop from Unitree, when its shares start trading on Shanghai's STAR market later this month, making it the first humanoid robot maker to list on the mainland.Unitree's offering saw record retail demand in Shanghai's STAR market, with the online tranche oversubscribed more than 5,000 times, translating to a historically low lot-winning rate of 0.018%. Its IPO also attracted strategic investors including AI startup DeepSeek.A Unitree-linked pre-IPO perpetual contract on Hyperliquid was trading at roughly four times its IPO price as of Friday, as investors turn to crypto-derivative ...