At the “Robot Fantastic Night”, Huang Xiaoming and Zhipu Robotics
Zhipu, a Chinese humanoid robot enterprise, has broken through the mass – production milestone of 10,000 units ahead of Tesla.
On March 27, Tencent Technology exclusively learned that Zhipu Robotics is about to officially announce the news of the mass – production and offline of its 10,000th humanoid robot. It has only been a quarter since the last official announcement of the offline of 5,000 units.
On December 8, 2025, Zhipu Robotics, in cooperation with Huang Xiaoming’s studio, officially announced the offline of its 5,000th general embodied robot, Lingxi X2.
Public information shows that Zhipu’s humanoid robot products mainly include three series: Lingxi, Yuanzheng, and Jingling. The first two series are designed with two – feet, while the Jingling series uses a wheeled design.
Main product series of Zhipu humanoid robots
According to the data disclosed by Peng Zhihui (Zhi Huijun), the co – founder, president, and CTO of Zhipu, among the 5,000 mass – produced robots at that time, there were 1,846 units of the Lingxi series, 1,742 units of the Yuanzheng series, and 1,412 units of the Jingling series.
Zhipu’s leading announcement of the offline of 10,000 humanoid robots reflects the accelerated mass – production of the entire Chinese humanoid robot industry.
Before this, including Zhipu, XPeng Motors, Ubtech, and Zhongqing, have all officially announced their mass – production plans for 2026. Among them, Zhou Jian, the CEO of Ubtech, disclosed externally at the end of 2025 that the production capacity plan for 2026 would be increased to 10,000 units. XPeng Motors officially announced in late February that it would layout a full – chain mass – production base for humanoid robots in Guangzhou to promote the mass – production of the IRON robot.
“It will break through 10,000 units in the middle of next year.” At an industry event at the end of 2025, Wang Chuang, the co – founder of Zhipu, more clearly disclosed the mass – production target for 2026. In other words, the mass – production and offline of Zhipu’s 10,000th humanoid robot is one quarter ahead of the original target.
As the leader in the concept of humanoid robots, Tesla’s implementation pace is obviously slower than that of its Chinese counterparts.
At Tesla’s earnings conference in early 2025, Elon Musk disclosed that the monthly production capacity of the Optimus production line reached 1,000 units and publicly announced the target of mass – producing 10,000 units in 2025. However, it was Zhipu Robotics from China that first reached the mass – production milestone of 10,000 units.
While accelerating mass – production, Chinese humanoid robots are also strengthening brand exposure and market expansion.
Among them, Zhipu held an independent robot party, the “Robot Fantastic Night”, on February 8. On the other hand, brands including Unitree and Galaxy Universal collectively appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage to meet the national audience. At exhibitions such as CES and MWC, products including the Tianggong robot of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Unitree, Zhipu, and Fourier have successively appeared to meet overseas users.
According to the observation of Tencent Technology, the brand promotion of many humanoid robot companies has reached a new level. There are basically new promotion actions every week, and some companies have up to 5 brand promotion cases within a week.
They compete in brand promotion in the domestic market and in market implementation overseas.
According to public information, enterprises including Unitree, Zhipu, and Ubtech are all promoting cooperation in the overseas market. Exhibitions like CES and MWC are a key bridge. Dozens of Chinese humanoid robot enterprises have successively appeared at these two exhibitions this year.
“Overseas markets need brands, but exhibitions are essentially channel business,” a Chinese hardware brand entrepreneur told Tencent Technology before. “Other things are just icing on the cake.”
Among the Chinese humanoid robot companies going global, Zhipu is particularly aggressive. In January 2026, Zhipu’s first overseas experience store was established in Malaysia, and it held its first press conference in Europe in Italy. In March, it promoted cooperation with Singtel.
Actually, Zhipu started exploring the overseas market in 2025. At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference of the same year, Yao Maoqing, a partner of Zhipu Robotics, revealed that Zhipu had started delivering products overseas, covering North America, Europe, the Middle East, Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, etc. “Due to labor cost factors, foreign countries are also actively embracing robots, mainly in scenarios such as the automotive and retail industries.”
The aforementioned Zhipu insider revealed that Zhipu will also hold a new – session partner conference in April, and it is expected to disclose more strategic layouts for the overseas market.
While focusing on mass – production, brand promotion, and going global, the financing and listing arrangements of Chinese humanoid robot companies are also in progress. In particular, their collective appearance on the Spring Festival Gala stage is interpreted by the industry as paving the way for financing and listing.
“At this year’s Spring Festival Gala, five robot companies each paid 100 million yuan to CCTV to appear on the gala,” He Xiaopeng, the chairman and CEO of XPeng Motors, revealed before. “Basically, they are all preparing for listing and financing.”
According to the previous statistics of Tencent Technology, as of February 14, Chinese embodied intelligence start – ups have completed nearly 10 billion yuan in financing in the past quarter. This includes Xinghaitu’s 1 billion yuan in financing, Zibianliang’s 1 billion yuan in financing, the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center’s 700 million yuan in financing, Galaxy Universal’s 300 million US dollars in financing, and Zhujidongli’s 200 million US dollars in financing.
In terms of listing, Zhipu has repeatedly responded to relevant rumors and denied the news of listing in Hong Kong and on the Science and Technology Innovation Board. Instead, Unitree, which has repeatedly mentioned its listing plan, has made substantial progress.
On March 20, the Shanghai Stock Exchange officially accepted the application for the Science and Technology Innovation Board IPO of Unitree Technology Co., Ltd., with a proposed financing amount of 4.202 billion yuan. The “first humanoid robot stock” on the Science and Technology Innovation Board is on the way.
An interesting phenomenon is that market research institution Omdia disclosed the shipment data of humanoid robots in 2025 at the end of last year. The shipment volumes of Zhipu Robotics, Unitree Technology, and Ubtech were 5,168 units, 4,200 units, and 1,000 units respectively. At that time, Unitree cared very much and issued a statement emphasizing that the data was false, saying that its annual shipment volume exceeded 5,500 units. Anyway, the shipment volume of leading humanoid robots in 2025 was basically confirmed to be around 5,000 units.
Now, Zhipu has exceeded 10,000 units in mass – production. So the question is: What level of shipment volume can each company reach this year?
This article is from the WeChat official account “Tencent Technology”, author: Su Yang. Republished by 36Kr with permission.
