The humanoid robot bubble in China: Unitree’s circular financing

Unitree Robotics, a Chinese company known for making humanoid robots, went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with a $50 billion market cap following an IPO that raised 6.1 billion yuan ($904 million). Its stock price jumped as much as 629% during its first day of trading before settling down to close up 460%. This is all made possible through a circular investment model in which robot companies invest in state-run training institutions who then return the favor by sharing training data with them. For example, five minutes of robot motion data can be worth up to $148,000.

In the first nine months of 2025, nearly 75% of Unitree’s humanoid sales were in the education/research segment instead of industry clients. Only about 2–3 out of every 8 hours spent training results in valuable data. Some analysts aren’t convinced: Unitree has a price/revenue ratio of 35.89 compared to around 20x for similar Hong Kong companies, while one analyst described the situation as “clearly without fundamental basis.” This reminds us of similar circular investment models that drove past bubbles in various industries across China.