Two Blockbuster Listings Mark China's Hard-tech Rise

Chinese pioneering humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics made its stock market debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's technology-focused Star Market on August 19, becoming the first of its kind listed on the A-share market. The company has won global attention with its humanoid and quadruped robots that can run, dance and do backflips and kung fu.

It is going to be "the bellwether for the humanoid robotics industry," Lian Jye Su, chief analyst at the Singapore-based market research firm Omdia, told CNBC. Ethan Qi, associate director at market analysis firm Counterpoint Research, called it a milestone for the humanoid industry. Qi told CNN that this can "serve as a benchmark for other initial public offerings in the pipeline."

The listing has given the public a rare chance to invest in a humanoid robotics company and could set a benchmark for other manufacturers, Jack Pearson from investment firm RoboStrateg told BBC.

China is solidifying its dominance in the world's robotics supply chain, and it holds an unrivaled grip on the manufacturing ecosystem for humanoids' bodies, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The country dominates the humanoid robotics market, generating 90 percent of the global output, according to Interact Analysis. Among them, Unitree and AgiBot, another Chinese company specializing in embodied intelligence, each shipping more than 5,000, together accounted for 71 percent of the nearly 13,000 humanoid robots shipped globally in 2025, according to Omdia.

Morgan Stanley predicts overall humanoid-robot shipments in China will reach 50,000 units this year and more than 440,000 by 2030.

"China's microelectronics, their motors, their rare earth, their magnets —which is foundational to robotics — they are the world's best," NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang said in a podcast in March.

Unitree's debut followed another blockbuster listing in Shanghai by the Chinese memory chipmaker ChangXin Memory Technologies (CXMT) in July. In its debut, CXMT soared nearly 466 percent, making it the most valuable China-listed company. This was evidence of increased investor interest in China's efforts at self-reliance, Wu Zhuoyin, senior economist at French investment bank Natixis, told Nikkei.

CXMT is the world's fourth biggest producer of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM), with its market share of about 7.7 percent in 2025, only behind Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix, and Micron Technology, Inc.

"Amid persistent supply shortages, many customers are seeking to diversify their memory supplier base, which should significantly benefit CXMT and create more business opportunities," Ellie Wang, an analyst at TrendForce, a technology research firm, told Reuters. According to Nomura, a leading financial services group, CXMT's share of the global DRAM market could rise to about 18 percent by the end of 2028.

"I have no doubt the company is going to grow to be a global leader. It's maybe just a question of time that it can be not only a challenger, it can be a global champion in this particular sector," Yiyi Capital CEO Theodore Shou told CNBC.

Source: Science and Technology Daily