Why It's Nearly Impossible to Build a Robot Without China

For a long time, Japan was the world's best country at building robots. Japanese engineers made amazing machines that could walk, grab objects, and even play the piano. But today, China has taken over as the top robot-making nation, and its lead keeps growing. This shift is changing the entire robotics industry around the world.

At a big robotics conference called the Humanoids Summit, held in Tokyo in May, many people talked about one thing: how hard it is for other countries to compete with China. A humanoid robot is a robot shaped like a human, with two legs and two arms. Japanese companies used to be the leaders in building these machines, but now they are trying to figure out how to keep up. Even some Japanese companies showed off software using robots made by a Chinese company called Unitree Robotics.

Chinese makers now control most of the supply chain for humanoid robots. A supply chain is the group of companies that make all the different parts that go into a product. Unitree is selling humanoid robots for less than $5,000 each, which is very cheap for a robot. Companies in Japan and other countries find it very hard to match that low price.

Ming Hsun Lee, an expert at BofA Global Research, explained why China has such a big advantage. "The component cost in China has gone down way too fast — other countries can't compete," he said. A component is a single part that is used to build something bigger. In the past, Chinese robots needed parts from Japan and other countries, but now almost all those parts are made right in China.

Even though humanoid robots are exciting, experts admit they still cannot do most real jobs very well. The promise of these robots has not been fully reached yet. But China is already winning in a part of robotics that is very useful right now: factory robots. These are machines that work on assembly lines, building products over and over again.

China is installing factory robots faster than any other country in the world. In 2024, more than two million robots were working in Chinese factories. On top of that, another 300,000 new robots were installed — more than in all other countries put together. In countries like Japan, the United States, South Korea, and Germany, the number of new factory robots actually went down.

China's rise in robotics is closely connected to its success in building electric vehicles, or EVs. An electric vehicle is a car that runs on a battery instead of gasoline. The Chinese government spent many years and a lot of money helping companies build EVs, and as part of that plan, China worked to make almost every car part inside the country. Now, many of those same companies are using their skills to make robot parts too.

Tesla, the American electric car company, helped kick off China's EV industry when it built a huge factory in Shanghai. The network of suppliers that grew up around Tesla also helps Tesla's robot business. Even though Tesla has tried to find suppliers outside China, it still gets at least 70 percent of its parts from Chinese companies.

UBTech, a robot company based in Shenzhen, is surrounded by suppliers who used to make EV parts and have now switched to making robot parts. The company can get almost any part it needs within just a few hours, and many parts are even 3D printed on demand. Michael Tam, UBTech's chief brand officer, said, "I can send a design map by 9 a.m. and get the printed components by noon." More than 90 percent of the parts in UBTech's robots come from Chinese companies.

Money is pouring into China's robot industry at a record pace. In 2025 alone, investors put more than $5 billion into Chinese humanoid robot startups — equal to all the money invested in the five years before that. This flood of money shows that many people believe humanoid robots could soon become one of the most important ways that artificial intelligence affects the real world. One of the biggest Chinese robot companies, Unitree, is now getting ready to sell shares of itself to the public, and UBTech plans to make 10 times as many robots this year as it did in 2025.