Unitree’s spectacular Shanghai debut has made China’s robot champion a market phenomenon. Its own founder, however, is warning that the technology behind the frenzy is nowhere near finished.

The runway to Wednesday’s listing began with spectacle. Unitree’s dancing humanoids became fixtures of China’s Spring Festival Gala, and the Hangzhou company’s backflips, leaps and claims of record-breaking speed helped turn it into a symbol of the country’s robotics push.¹ China’s government has designated humanoid robotics a strategic industry; Chinese firms accounted for about 97% of global humanoid shipments in the first half of 2026, according to Smart Analytics Global, with Unitree holding roughly 31%.²

On Wednesday, investors delivered the payoff. Unitree raised about $900 million at a $9 billion IPO valuation, then saw its shares briefly surge as much as 629% before closing 460% higher.³ The move lifted its valuation to roughly $66 billion, above U.S. rival Figure AI’s last reported $39 billion valuation.¹

But Thursday brought a reality check from Wang Xingxing, Unitree’s 36-year-old founder and chief executive. He said robotics could reach a ChatGPT-style breakthrough in “2 to 3 years at the fastest, and 5 or even 10 years at the slowest.”⁴ His benchmark is far more demanding than a choreographed performance: a robot dropped into an unfamiliar home or workplace and able to complete about 80% of tasks through voice or text commands.

Wang conceded that current machines remain less efficient than people and must be retrained for each new task.⁴ That caution echoes analysts who argue that flashy shipment growth may not translate into lasting demand; one investor warned, “Growth from a tiny base is easy.”²

The market’s enthusiasm also cooled quickly, with the shares falling about 19% on Thursday and another 2% on Friday.⁴ Unitree now embodies both sides of China’s humanoid bet: an enormous national and investor wager on machines that can impress on stage, but have yet to prove they can work reliably in the real world.