Unitree Robotics

Unitree Robotics is a Chinese robotics company founded in 2016 by Wang Xingxing and headquartered in Hangzhou. It first became the world's highest-volume maker of four-legged robots — the agile, dog-like quadrupeds used in inspection, research, and entertainment — and has since become one of the most prominent makers of low-cost humanoid robots.

Unitree's humanoid lineup is defined by aggressive pricing that undercuts Western rivals by an order of magnitude. Its G1 is a compact, research-focused humanoid that sits between the entry-level R1 and the flagship H1, and the range has helped Unitree ship more humanoid robots than any other manufacturer — over five thousand units in 2025, or roughly a third of the global total. Unlike most humanoid makers, the company is already profitable, with revenue growing more than tenfold between 2023 and 2025 as demand climbed.

In March 2026, Unitree filed for an initial public offering on Shanghai's STAR Market — the science-and-technology board — in one of the fastest reviews the exchange has run. The listing would make it the first major humanoid-robot pure-play to reach the public markets, and a bellwether for how investors value a category that is still moving from viral demos toward proven, at-scale deployment.

The company's US market access narrowed sharply in July 2026. On July 28, the Federal Communications Commission added foreign-produced advanced robotic devices — mobile robots including humanoids and quadrupeds — to its Covered List, which bars such equipment from receiving new FCC authorizations and therefore from being newly imported, marketed, or sold in the United States. The rule is written by device category and foreign production rather than by company, and it does not revoke existing authorizations or affect robots already owned; a conditional-approval path runs through the Department of War. Separately, the Pentagon has listed Unitree among Chinese firms it says have ties to or support the Chinese military, a characterization Beijing rejects. Together the two actions matter well beyond one vendor: China accounts for roughly eighty-five percent of the global humanoid market, and Unitree is the volume leader inside it, so a closed US path for new models is a live question for the STAR Market listing thesis.