Unitree IPO puts physical AI in investor spotlight

Investors are showing a strong appetite for Unitree Robotics' initial public offering, reflecting growing optimism about China's ambition to turn its industrial chain strengths into commercially viable artificial intelligence applications in the physical world, market experts and investment banks said.

Though still at an early stage of commercialization, China's embodied intelligence industry is gaining momentum in scaling up applications, first in business scenarios and later in consumer markets, creating a distinctive opportunity set for global investors, they said.

The IPO of Unitree on Shanghai's STAR Market — the first A-share listing of a major producer of humanoid robots — has entered the subscription stage, with buoyant demand helping to lift its issue price and fundraising size above earlier expectations.

Its issuing announcement showed that it had priced its IPO at 150.80 yuan ($22.35) per share, with expected proceeds amounting to 6.099 billion yuan, higher than the 4.202 billion yuan estimated in its earlier IPO filing at an implied price of about 104 yuan per share.

Its IPO price represents a price-to-earnings ratio of 219.23 times, far surpassing the industry average of 38.56 times and giving it a market capitalization of about 60.99 billion yuan at the IPO price, the announcement said.

The offering attracted a group of strategic investors, including the National Council for Social Security Fund, DeepSeek, as well as investment arms or affiliates of China National Petroleum Corp, China Southern Power Grid, China Telecom, Tencent and CITIC Securities.

Notably, the social security fund has become Unitree's largest strategic investor, subscribing to 933,402 shares, or 2.31 percent of the offering, for around 141 million yuan.

The move underscores long-term institutional capital's recognition of the humanoid robotics sector's prospects.

Retail investors have also shown enthusiasm ahead of Unitree's online subscriptions that open on Monday, with posts wishing for successful allocations piling up on financial information platform Eastmoney's online stock forum for the company.

Yang Shuning, executive director and partner at Wenzhi Capital, a Beijing-based private equity company focused on high-tech investments, said the keen demand and high valuation reflect investors' optimism about Unitree's commercialization prospects and its positioning in the embodied intelligence sector.

"Given the scarcity premium enjoyed by leading players in tech sectors and the multibillion-dollar valuations seen among overseas humanoid robotics peers, Unitree's valuation is not without justification," he said.

But Yang cautioned that Unitree's valuation is less about current earnings than about investors pricing in its future profitability. "If Unitree falls behind in scaling up commercialization, revenue growth weakens or investors start using a different valuation yardstick, valuations would come under pressure."

Commercial promise

Wang Xingxing, Unitree's founder and chairman, said on Friday that the company's pure humanoid robot shipments exceeded 5,500 units in 2025, the highest in the world.

Unitree's rise has come as China's humanoid robotics sector takes the lead worldwide in terms of shipments, with its commercialization prospects becoming increasingly visible.

Citing exhibition examples at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, UBS said in a recent report that humanoid robots are "increasingly being evaluated as production tools rather than exhibition assets".

Commercialization should first scale in structured business-to-business scenarios such as factories, logistics and smart pharmacies, while consumer use cases remain a longer-term prospect, the report said.

Zhao Liang, a partner at Unique Capital, an investment institution focused on AI innovation, said that humanoid robots may integrate with specific application scenarios on a large scale in the next three to five years.

"Given China's advantages in industrial supply chains and talent, the country's embodied intelligence industry chain may bring a surprise to the world," Zhao said.

Unitree's listing, which took only 104 days to go from the application acceptance stage to registration approval, is expected to further boost financing, investment and development of China's embodied intelligence sector, experts said.

Besides Unitree, another major Chinese humanoid manufacturer, AGIBOT, is seeking an IPO in Hong Kong. According to UBS, China's embodied AI sector saw a wave of IPO filings and strong primary market financing this year, with first-half funding going above 34.5 billion yuan.

With a buoyant listing pipeline, China's embodied intelligence industry — and the broader physical AI sector — could offer global investors a distinct exposure to the next phase of AI development where physical-world applications become increasingly important, experts added.

Goldman Sachs said in a report that while the US and North Asian tech companies hold a dominant position in sectors such as semiconductor and AI models, China's AI opportunity set seems better populated in power, infrastructure and physical AI, implying a potentially strong value proposition and diversification benefits to global investors.