The IPO of leading Chinese humanoid maker Unitree today has been a major success, highlighting the growing investor enthusiasm surrounding the humanoid robotics industry. Unitree’s product portfolio spans bipedal humanoid robots capable of walking and manipulating objects with dexterous hands, as well as four-legged robots. The IPO attracted strategic investors, including AI startup DeepSeek, raised more than $900 million, and sent the stock surging by more than 460%, giving the company a valuation of around $50 billion.
While humanoid robotics remains a niche market, with only tens of thousands of units expected to ship this year, the excitement surrounding Unitree’s IPO comes at a time when pilot projects and initial commercial deployments are multiplying worldwide, providing increasing confidence in the industry’s long-term growth outlook.
In automotive and industrial manufacturing, several major companies are now moving from experimentation toward more concrete deployments. After Figure 02 spent ten months at BMW’s Spartanburg plant in 2025, helping produce more than 30,000 BMW X3s by positioning sheet-metal parts for welding, BMW and U.S.-based Figure have now moved to Figure 03. The new robot is being used for a more sophisticated logistics application, sequencing parts and moving a heavy cart, requiring significantly more whole-body coordination than simple pick-and-place operations.
Agility Robotics’ Digit has similarly progressed from pilot to commercial deployment. Following a pilot at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, the companies moved in February 2026 to a commercial Robots-as-a-Service agreement, with Digit intended to support manufacturing, supply-chain and logistics operations at Toyota facilities. This transition from proof-of-concept to a commercial deployment model is an important milestone for the industry, as it suggests that customers are beginning to assess humanoids not only as experimental technologies but also as potential productivity-enhancing tools.
Chinese humanoid maker UBTECH is also making progress in industrial applications. UBTECH and Hitachi recently announced a strategic partnership, with the company’s Walker S2 already being introduced into selected manufacturing environments. The most concrete project is at a Hitachi Elevator manufacturing plant, where the companies are testing humanoids for production applications, a project described as being in a “substantive validation phase.”
In Korea, Hyundai Motor is preparing to introduce its U.S.-based subsidiary Boston Dynamics’ Atlas into its manufacturing operations, with deployment in U.S. EV manufacturing targeted around 2028. Hyundai is also planning to establish large-scale Atlas production, with a target of approximately 30,000 robots annually, potentially making it one of the industry’s most ambitious industrial deployment programs.
Beyond factories, logistics is emerging as another important testing ground for humanoids. In collaboration with Amazon, Agility’s Digit has become one of the first humanoids to operate continuously inside a commercial warehouse environment. Unlike most warehouse robots, which are wheeled platforms or fixed robotic arms, Digit is a bipedal robot designed to navigate environments originally built for humans. Amazon’s initial application focuses on a relatively simple but highly repetitive task: moving empty containers within fulfillment centers. Digit collects empty containers and transports them across the facility, reducing the need for workers to perform repetitive lifting and carrying.
Figure is also expanding into logistics, having announced a commercial agreement with Catalyst Brands to deploy its humanoids at the company’s Reno distribution center. The initial focus is on physically demanding supply-chain tasks in a distribution environment, providing another opportunity to test whether humanoids can deliver an economic advantage in real-world warehouse operations.
Overall, while the industry remains at an early stage, momentum is clearly building. Automotive manufacturers, aerospace companies and logistics operators are increasingly experimenting with humanoid platforms as advances in AI, sensors, actuators and robotics hardware continue to improve their capabilities. The key question is now shifting from whether humanoids can perform individual tasks to whether they can do so reliably, autonomously and at a competitive cost in real-world industrial environments.
If these early trials and deployments prove successful, humanoid robot shipments could scale dramatically toward the end of the decade, potentially reaching millions of units and becoming an increasingly common feature of industrial workplaces.
The Unitree IPO then comes at a particularly interesting time for the industry and could also encourage further capital-market activity. Chinese humanoid makers AgiBot and Leju Robotics are reportedly preparing potential listings in the coming months, while Korean robotic-hand maker Tesollo has officially begun preparations for an IPO. Meanwhile, U.S.-based Boston Dynamics, owned by Hyundai Motor, is reportedly considering a listing as early as 2027.
This increasing capital-markets activity should provide a positive backdrop for the broader humanoid ecosystem and help channel additional capital into the sector. While the spotlight is naturally on the humanoid manufacturers, we believe it is still too early to pick the winners. Against this backdrop, we continue to favor humanoid component suppliers—companies exposed to motors, actuators, reducers, batteries, sensors and vision systems. Regardless of which manufacturers ultimately emerge as industry leaders, these “picks-and-shovels” suppliers should be well positioned to benefit from the long-term expansion of the humanoid robotics market.
