China’s competition to dominate the next generation of robotics intensified on Thursday after DeepSeek emerged as a strategic investor in Unitree Technology’s initial public offering.
DeepSeek invested 140.8 million yuan, equivalent to approximately $20.8 million, and received 933,399 Unitree shares through a strategic placement. That represents about 2.31% of the shares offered through the arrangement.
Unitree priced its Shanghai offering at 150.8 yuan per share, valuing the company at approximately 61 billion yuan, or $9 billion. The robotics manufacturer plans to sell 40.45 million new shares on Shanghai’s technology-focused STAR Market and raise roughly 6.1 billion yuan.
The listing is an important milestone because it places a measurable public-market value on a company devoted substantially to humanoid and four-legged robots. Unitree has attracted international attention through machines capable of running, maintaining balance, performing coordinated movements and completing demonstrations that were once limited to experimental laboratories.
DeepSeek and Unitree intend to collaborate on artificial-intelligence models for humanoid machines. Unitree contributes experience in mechanical engineering, movement control and robot production, while DeepSeek brings expertise in building powerful AI models.
Their combined challenge is to give robots more than impressive physical movement. A genuinely useful humanoid machine must recognise objects, interpret changing surroundings, understand instructions and complete unfamiliar tasks without depending on continuous human control.
Physical-world training data will be crucial. Language models can learn from enormous collections of digital text, but robots must also understand balance, distance, resistance, human behaviour and the consequences of physical actions. Unitree has been collecting this type of information through robot trials guided by human operators.
The investment could therefore help DeepSeek extend its technology beyond computer screens. Access to real machines and movement data may support the development of “embodied AI”—artificial intelligence capable of observing, reasoning and acting inside the physical world.
Unitree’s financial growth illustrates the rising commercial interest surrounding robotics. Its revenue reportedly increased from 393 million yuan in 2024 to nearly 1.7 billion yuan in 2025. Humanoid robots also overtook the company’s better-known four-legged machines as its largest source of sales.
However, advanced demonstrations do not guarantee widespread commercial adoption. Humanoid robots must become more reliable, safer and less expensive before businesses can deploy them routinely in factories, warehouses, hospitals or homes. Unitree will also face higher research expenses and growing competition from companies in China, the United States and other technology markets.
The DeepSeek investment suggests that the global AI contest is entering a new stage. The race is no longer concerned only with which company can create the strongest digital model; it is increasingly about which organisation can give artificial intelligence a capable physical body.
