Chinese humanoid startups are already shipping robots to factories and malls while their U.S. rivals remain focused on development and far higher valuations, according to CNBC's The China Connection newsletter. The split lays out the hierarchy of the robot race in plain terms: one side is putting machines into workplaces and public spaces, while the other is still selling the promise of future dominance at a much higher price.
Who Is Shipping, Who Is Speculating
Chinese humanoid startups are already shipping robots to factories and malls. That is the hard fact sitting underneath the glossy investment chatter. U.S. humanoid robot startup Figure commands a valuation of at least $39 billion, and Texas-based rival Apptronik achieved a $5 billion valuation in February. That is above the $3 billion-plus valuation of Chinese startup Galbot, which says it is the highest-valued privately held Chinese company in the sector.
Galbot's backers come from China, Singapore and the Middle East, not the U.S. Among private companies, and with well over 100 humanoid startups in China, AI2 Robotics has achieved a 20 billion yuan, or $2.93 billion, valuation, according to CEO and founder Eric Guo. Guo said a large foreign high-end manufacturer chose AI2's robots over the U.S. startup's for factory work, and said AI2 is rolling out robots at airports in China and in semiconductor and healthcare factories. The market loves a valuation story; the factories and airports get the actual machines.
Guo said, "Commercialization and tech capability aren't contradictory." He said he expects investors, even from the U.S., to start picking up on that investment thesis in a few months. In other words, the apparatus of capital is still waiting for permission to notice what is already being deployed.
The Money Behind the Machines
Chinese humanoid startups took the top six spots in Omdia's rankings of global robot shipments in 2025, and Figure and Tesla were the only U.S. companies in the top 10. A Figure robot appeared beside U.S. first lady Melania Trump at a White House event in March, while Tesla's Optimus still largely remains in development. The contrast is almost too neat: one robot posed for the state spectacle, another is still mostly a promise.
Rui Ma, founder of Tech Buzz China, said U.S. humanoid startups are being priced as wide-reaching artificial intelligence platforms, while Chinese ones are seen more as industrial hardware plays. Ma said, "If China ends up dominating manufacturing scale and real-world deployment," U.S. venture capital funds may miss out on the opportunity to some degree. That is the language of capital admitting it may have backed the wrong fantasy.
Geopolitics has complicated the investment landscape. U.S.-China tensions and domestic national security policies have chilled cross-border investment, and large U.S. pension funds that once invested heavily in Chinese startups via venture capital funds have reduced their exposure in the wake of greater regulatory scrutiny on both sides. The people whose retirement money once flowed through venture capital are now caught in a tightening web of state policy and financial caution, while the firms and funds keep hunting for the next profitable deployment.
That has created an opportunity for Middle East funds, which have backed Chinese venture capital and bought locally developed robots as Gulf countries look to transition away from fossil fuels. Ma said they "seem able to play both sides more flexibly" and "they may end up with the most balanced exposure to the humanoid opportunity." Limx Dynamics, whose backers include China-based Future Capital, got its first foreign investor this year in Dubai-based Stone Venture.
Winston Ma, adjunct professor of law at the New York University School of Law, said roughly 90% of U.S. venture capital flows into software, leaving a critical financing gap in hard tech that sovereign funds are uniquely positioned to fill. He added that China's experience with electric car and drone manufacturing is now translating into humanoid production. Future Capital, whose early investments included EV company Li Auto, recently announced that another of its portfolio companies, sports robot company Pongbot, had raised almost 200 million yuan in less than six months.
What the Macro Numbers Say
In the newsletter's macro section, China's economy grew by 5% in the first quarter, first-quarter GDP rose by a better-than-expected 5% from a year ago, retail sales missed with a 1.7% year-on-year increase in March, and exports slowed their growth to 2.5% as the Iran war hit global demand. Those figures sit beside the robot boom like a ledger from the same machine: growth where it can be counted, slowdown where conflict and demand disruptions bite.
Cameron Johnson, Shanghai-based senior partner at supply chain consulting firm Tidalwave Solutions, said Americans are coming to Shenzhen to buy humanoid robot parts and combine them with U.S. software. The supply chain, like the investment map, is already international and already uneven, with parts, software, capital and deployment split across borders and interests.
The newsletter also said Chinese robotaxi company Didi last week became the latest Chinese robotaxi business to announce expansion plans in the Middle East during a business forum the United Arab Emirates organized with China as part of a state visit to Beijing. It said Hong Kong plans to halve the tax rate on profits from trading certain commodities to draw global players to the finance hub on the southern coast of China, with exact implementation dates not yet announced. The state and the market keep moving together, one organizing forums and tax cuts, the other chasing the next opening.
The newsletter also listed upcoming events: April 21, Volkswagen Group to premiere four new car models in Beijing; April 24 to May 3, Beijing Auto Show; and April 15 to May 5, Export-focused Canton Fair in Guangzhou, Spring Session.