# China builds, America demos: what 108 makers tell you > Chinese makers account for 65 of the 182 humanoids in our record and 31 of the 44 you can order. American makers hold the money, the research and most of the autonomy claims, and sell you almost nothing. Published: 2026-09-05 Section: Opinion Author: Geert Jan van Vlastuin, Editor, humanoid.observer Canonical: https://humanoid.observer/blog/china-builds-america-demos/ Licence: editorial text all rights reserved. The underlying data is CC BY 4.0 at https://humanoid.observer/data/. Cite as: humanoid.observer, https://humanoid.observer/blog/china-builds-america-demos/, accessed . --- Of the 182 humanoid robots in our record, 65 come from Chinese makers and 44 from American ones. Of the 44 you can order today, 31 are Chinese and 5 are American, and all 5 American ones are preorders. On 4 September 2026 no US maker has a machine in stock. That is the shape of the market. The detail is less one-sided. ## Who builds, and who lists The maker count is close: 33 American companies against 30 Chinese in our list of 108. But 9 of the 33 American entries are universities, [MIT](/companies/mit/) and [UC Berkeley](/companies/uc-berkeley/) among them. China's 30, 20 of them startups, put 65 machines in the record against 44. Of the 65 Chinese machines, 48 were first shown in 2024 or later; of the American 44, 18 were. On status, 34 Chinese machines are logged as commercial. One American machine is, [Digit v4](/robots/agility-digit-v4/), and [Agility](/companies/agility-robotics/) leases it rather than selling it. Twelve American entries are retired and eleven are research platforms. ## The order button is mostly Chinese In stock or on preorder: China 31, the United States 5. China has 28 in stock and 3 on preorder; the US has 0 in stock and 5 on preorder. Seventeen Chinese makers will take an order. Four American ones will: [K-Scale Labs](/companies/k-scale-labs/) with the [Z-Bot](/robots/k-scale-z-bot/) at $999, [Hugging Face](/companies/hugging-face/) with [HopeJR](/robots/hugging-face-hopejr/) at $3,000, [Weave Robotics](/companies/weave-robotics/) with [Isaac 1](/robots/weave-isaac-1/) at $7,999 and [1X](/companies/1x/) with [NEO](/robots/1x-neo/) at $20,000. All four are logged as teleoperated or partly so. NEO's Expert Mode hands the robot to 1X staff; Weave says remote operators finish what Isaac cannot. Nineteen of the 31 Chinese buyable machines carry a price we can point at, from $299 for the [Robosen K1 Pro](/robots/robosen-k1-pro/), a walking toy, to $63,000 for the [Robotera Q5](/robots/robotera-q5/). The median is $13,700, next to the [Unitree G1](/robots/unitree-g1/) at $13,500 and the [EngineAI PM01](/robots/engineai-pm01/) at $13,700; the [Unitree R1](/robots/unitree-r1/) is $4,900. Ten Chinese buyable machines are 150 cm or taller; the two American ones, NEO and Isaac 1, are undelivered. Two cautions on the Chinese side. Twelve of the 31 sit at a distributor with no published price, so in stock means a quote. And 40 of the 65 Chinese machines are logged as partly teleoperated, with 22 more unknown. One Chinese record says no teleoperation. ## Where the United States leads Money. Counting disclosed rounds to makers in our record, American companies raised $5,400,500,000 across 18 rounds. Chinese makers raised $1,021,000,000 across 8, with 11 more rounds undisclosed. [Figure](/companies/figure-ai/) alone took $1,000,000,000 at a $39,000,000,000 valuation on 16 September 2025, nearly the total of all eight disclosed Chinese rounds. The largest Chinese round is [AgiBot](/companies/agibot/) at $293,000,000, for control of a listed company. The caveat: Chinese capital runs through the state. Beijing's CNY 100 billion fund, about $13,800,000,000, covers robotics, AI and information industries together, with no humanoid line item. Deployments, with a twist. China has 22 in the record, the US 18. But 8 American deployments are logged as autonomous, against 2 Chinese: Digit at GXO's Spanx warehouse in Georgia since October 2023, [Apollo](/robots/apptronik-apollo/) at Jabil, [Figure 02](/robots/figure-02/) at BMW Spartanburg, [electric Atlas](/robots/boston-dynamics-atlas-electric/) announced for Hyundai's Georgia plant. Eighteen of the 22 Chinese deployments are logged as mixed, including the [Walker S1](/robots/ubtech-walker-s1/) and [Walker S2](/robots/ubtech-walker-s2/) line at BYD, Zeekr and Foxconn. Research. Both research milestones logged for 2024 to 2026 are American: Figure's Helix model and [Nvidia](/companies/nvidia/)'s GR00T N1. ## What "America demos" means in the record Of the milestones logged for 2024 to 2026, 25 involve American makers and 17 Chinese. The American ones break down into 8 general milestones, 5 reveals, 3 partnerships, 3 funding rounds and 3 demos: Figure 01 handing over an apple on 13 March 2024, [Optimus](/robots/tesla-optimus-gen-2/) pouring drinks on 10 October 2024, later confirmed as remotely operated, and Atlas sorting engine parts on 30 October 2024 without teleoperation. The Chinese entries include 8 reveals, 3 competitions, 2 deployments and 1 demo, sixteen [H1](/robots/unitree-h1/) robots dancing at the Spring Festival Gala on 28 January 2025. China reveals and races; America demos, raises and publishes. AgiBot logged its 1,000th unit off the line in January 2025. No American maker has a comparable count in the record. | | China | United States | |---|---|---| | Makers in the record | 30 | 33 (9 universities) | | Machines in the record | 65 | 44 | | First shown 2024 or later | 48 | 18 | | Status commercial | 34 | 1 | | Buyable (in stock or preorder) | 31 | 5 | | In stock today | 28 | 0 | | Buyable with a published price | 19 | 4 | | Buyable price range | $299 to $63,000 | $999 to $20,000 | | Deployments in the record | 22 | 18 | | Deployments logged autonomous | 2 | 8 | | Disclosed funding, makers in record | $1.02 billion, 8 rounds | $5.40 billion, 18 rounds | | Milestones 2024 to 2026 | 17 | 25 | ## If you are buying from Europe Read the shipping line first. Of the four American preorders with a buy record, one ships outside the US: HopeJR, a pair of open-source arms you assemble. NEO, Isaac 1 and Z-Bot list US delivery only. [Digit](/robots/agility-digit/), Apollo, [Figure 03](/robots/figure-03/) and Atlas have no order path at all. Of the 28 Chinese buy records, 21 list global shipping, freight or a sales route abroad. The only European full-size option with a price is [Pollen's Reachy 2](/robots/pollen-reachy-2/) at $70,000. So a European buying a humanoid this year is buying Chinese, and should budget for the teleoperation the record says comes with it. EU AI Act high-risk obligations are scheduled from 2 August 2026 and the Machinery Regulation from January 2027, and both apply to a humanoid sold in the EU whatever its maker's flag. If what you need is an autonomy record with a named customer, the American machines have it, and the price of that record is a sales call rather than an order. ## Sources - [Unitree G1 product page](https://shop.unitree.com/products/unitree-g1), Unitree - [UBTech official site](https://www.ubtrobot.com), UBTech - [AgiBot official site](https://www.agibot.com), AgiBot - [Figure AI valued at $39 billion in latest funding round](https://www.reuters.com/business/figure-ai-valued-39-billion-latest-funding-round-2025-09-16/), Reuters - [NEO](https://www.1x.tech/neo), 1X - [Agility Robotics](https://www.agilityrobotics.com/), Agility Robotics - [EU AI Act implementation timeline](https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/implementation-timeline/), Future of Life Institute