China’s criteria for humanoid robot IPOs may be hard to meet

BEIJING — China’s securities regulator is raising the bar for public listings of humanoid robot startups, according to three sources familiar with the CSRC’s thinking.

It’s a sign of how one of the hottest sectors of the market is cooling, as investors globally assess whether artificial intelligence stocks are in a bubble.

The Chinese regulator wants local “embodied AI” startups seeking to go public to meet three specific criteria, according to the sources, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation.

They are:

• The “window guidance” requires that the humanoid applicants have sustainable revenue and commercial orders.
• Losses must narrow, with one source saying a three-year forecast is needed.
• The company must possess core technology such as robotic brain or hands.

Even if a startup only has to meet two of the three criteria, as one source indicated, it’s unclear which, if any, of the companies can do so.

That’s lowered expectations to just a handful, or none, of these startups making it to public markets, the sources said.

At least two dozen humanoid-related embodied AI companies have filed to list in Hong Kong alone, according to two of the sources. Hong Kong in May 2025 started letting tech companies file confidentially for IPOs.

The Hong Kong stock exchange and China Securities Regulatory Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mainland China companies wanting to list in Hong Kong also need the CSRC’s blessing.

Scrutiny on China’s growing number of humanoid robot startups and their fast-growing valuations — supported by a mix of government and private sector funds — has grown over the last several weeks.

The industry’s posterchild, Unitree, got a regulatory fast-track to its listing in Shanghai on Aug. 19 as the World Robot Conference kicked off in Beijing.

But in a keynote a day later, founder Wang Xingxing cautioned that commercialization beyond dancing robots remained years away. It accentuated a debate that picked up in subsequent weeks on what humanoids can actually do — and whether industry startups were actually making money.

China now has well over 100 humanoid companies, which fall under the national push for “embodied AI.” The term received Beijing’s support in the last two annual government work reports, although authorities have warned of a bubble in the humanoid robot industry.

Reflecting a rapid surge in interest, investment in the sector hit 47.09 billion yuan ($6.95 billion) in the second quarter, more than double that of the first quarter — and up over six times versus the same period last year, according to industry data provider Xiniu.

Unitree raised about about 6.1 billion yuan ($905 million) in its IPO on Aug. 19 with Shanghai-listed shares skyrocketing more than 460% in their debut to close at 845 yuan.

The stock had nearly halved in price as of Monday, at 459.65 yuan a share.

Hong Kong-listed Ubtech has also tumbled more than 40% so far this year. The company, which went public in December 2023, still reported an operating loss for the first half of this year of 279 million yuan.

The share price decline contrasts with the flood of capital pouring into humanoid robotics companies over the last 12 months or so. The tech, often called “physical AI” in China, has been seen as a way for early-stage investors to benefit from the surge of interest in artificial intelligence models.

However, Rhodium Group analysis this month found that China’s AI companies only make about 10% the revenue of Anthropic and OpenAI. The ratio of valuation to revenue — especially for Chinese AI startups Moonshot and DeepSeek — was far higher than their U.S. rivals, the report said.

While expectations grow for the U.S. AI giants’ IPOs, chipmaker AMD said Monday it is acquiring World Labs for $8.2 billion in a stock deal. The startup, founded by AI pioneer Fei-Fei Li, is building AI models for creating virtual 3D environments frequently used in humanoid robot development.