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Robotics: humanoid robots & the companies building them

China's shipment forecasts keep getting revised upward — commercialization is moving faster than the banks modeled.

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Investment angle: Morgan Stanley has revised its China humanoid shipment forecast upward twice within a single year — from an initial 14,000 units to 28,000, then to 50,000 units for 2026, with annual shipments projected to reach 446,000 by 2030. Goldman Sachs projects the humanoid market could reach $38 billion by 2035 with roughly 1.4 million units shipped, while Morgan Stanley's longer-range estimate puts the total market (including services) at $5 trillion by 2050. The gap between those numbers isn't a contradiction — it reflects different scopes and timeframes — but the direction is consistent: real commercial deployment is accelerating faster than initial models anticipated, particularly in China.

Related: Automotive — Self-Driving Tech (the other autonomy race) →

Forecast Revision Tracker: Humanoid Shipments

Every major bank revision on humanoid robot shipment and market-size forecasts, tracked chronologically. Updated as new analyst notes come out.

Last updated: Aug 17, 2026

Jan 2026

Morgan Stanley's first China humanoid shipment estimate for 2026: 14,000 units.

Revision 1

Doubled its 2026 China estimate to 28,000 units, citing faster-than-expected commercial deployment.

Jun 2026

Revised a second time this year to 50,000 units for 2026 — a 257% increase from the original January estimate. Morgan Stanley explicitly declared the industry has entered an "early commercialization" phase and raised price targets on key robotics stocks by over 70%.

Real order

State Grid Corporation placed a ¥6.8 billion (~$1.0 billion) procurement order in H1 2026 — one of the concrete commercial deals cited as evidence for the upward revision, not just projected demand.

2026 market

China's humanoid robotics market sized at $2 billion for 2026, per Morgan Stanley's latest note.

2030 outlook

Annual China humanoid shipments reaching 446,000 units, market size $15 billion — a 106% CAGR from 2025-2030.

2035 (Goldman)

Goldman Sachs projects the global humanoid market reaches $38 billion with roughly 1.4 million units shipped.

2050 (Morgan Stanley)

Longer-range total addressable market, including services: $5 trillion.

Aug 19, 2026

The first real public-market price for humanoid robotics. Unitree Robotics debuted on Shanghai's STAR Market, popping as much as 629% intraday before settling to close up 460%, valuing the company between $50-66 billion depending on whether you use the closing or intraday-peak price. The IPO raised $904 million and was oversubscribed more than 8,000 times — a STAR Market record. Unlike nearly every other humanoid competitor, Unitree is actually profitable, posting 1.7 billion yuan in 2025 revenue. This is now the real comparable every private humanoid valuation (Figure AI, 1X, Apptronik) and every robotics ETF (KOID, BOTZ, ROBO) gets measured against.

What to watch next: With Unitree's IPO now behind us, attention shifts to Tesla's Optimus Gen 3/V3 mass-production launch (Tesla is targeting 50,000 units in 2026, up from 5,000 in 2025) and whether the 30-50 additional Chinese humanoid makers reportedly preparing Hong Kong listings can command similar multiples. Component suppliers Leaderdrive, Hengli Hydraulic, and Leadshine Technology are all scaling capacity in response to order volume, not just projected demand — a genuine supply-side confirmation signal worth more than another bank note alone.

The pattern of upward revisions within a single year suggests analysts are still catching up to real deployment speed rather than overestimating demand — worth checking back as new notes come out, since the trend so far has been consistently toward higher, not lower, numbers.

Nscale commits $3.5B in compute to humanoid maker Figure, takes equity stake

Announced September 3, cloud infrastructure firm Nscale signed a strategic partnership to provide Figure with an initial $3.5 billion of compute commitment, with intent to scale beyond $6 billion. The deal centers on deploying up to 100,000 Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs, with initial capacity targeted for Barstow, Texas starting in the second half of 2027; Nscale also takes a strategic equity stake in Figure, currently valued at roughly $39 billion — among the highest in humanoid robotics. Compute-for-equity deals are becoming a preferred financing structure in physical AI, letting infrastructure providers buy into robotics upside without a traditional VC round — a structure worth watching replicate across the sector.

Source: Bloomberg / PYMNTS →

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Robotics Company Directory

Unitree Robotics NOW PUBLIC (STAR Market)

First publicly-traded pure-play humanoid maker, profitable, ~$50-66B valuation

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Boston Dynamics

Atlas humanoid, Hyundai-owned

Visit Site Stock (Hyundai Motor)

Figure AI

Humanoid robotics startup