Tesla continues to work on its humanoid robot Optimus – but competition is already coming from China that could drive the race for the robots of the future.
• Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus is scheduled to go into series production in California in 2026
• China is catching up with humanoid robots, UBTECH Robotics plans to produce several thousand robots in 2026
• UBTECH Robotics acquires a stake in an important electronics manufacturer
Optimus: Tesla’s humanoid hope
According to the company, Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus, an autonomous, bipedal robot, will in the future take on repetitive, monotonous or potentially dangerous tasks. The company relies on advanced AI for vision and planning, supported by efficient inference hardware – an approach that is used in both autonomous vehicles and humanoid robots.
Tesla is preparing a strategic change: Production of the Model S and Model In the long term, Tesla is aiming for an annual capacity of one million units there, based on the third generation of the Optimus, which was consistently developed for efficient series production for the first time, it continues.
Elon Musk emphasized in a post on X (formerly Twitter) in September 2025 that Optimus would account for around 80 percent of Tesla’s value:
Those are the biggest factors.
~80% of Tesla’s value will be Optimus.
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 1, 2025
But Tesla’s plans could face competition from China.
China has an advantage at the start
Tesla’s humanoid robot Optimus is not yet commercially available. While the US company is working on market readiness, Chinese competitors could start mass production earlier, as CNBC reports. Humanoid robotics is becoming increasingly strategically important in Beijing – especially as the birth rate in China continues to decline while the average age of the population increases.
Andreas Brauchle, partner at consultancy Horváth, told CNBC via email late last year: “China is currently ahead of the United States in the early commercialization of humanoid robots. While both countries are expected to build similarly sized markets in the long term, China is scaling much faster in this initial phase.”
As CNBC points out, citing a December 2025 note from RBC Capital Markets, China could become the most important market for humanoid robots. Analysts at the bank expect the global addressable market to reach $9 trillion by 2050 – more than 60 percent of which could come from China, it said.
UBTECH Robotics focuses on industrial applications
UBTECH Robotics is one of China’s leading humanoid and intelligent service robot companies and became the first humanoid robot company to be listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023, according to the company. The company relies on life-size humanoid robots for industry, commerce and households. A special feature of the Walker S2 model is that it can change its battery independently and can therefore be used around the clock – a globally unique achievement in the field of humanoid robots, the company continues. UBTECH also holds over 2,700 patents in robotics and works closely with vehicle manufacturers to deploy Walker S-Series robots in production lines.
As Börse Global reports, the collaboration with BYD, Audi FAW and Foxconn has resulted in orders worth over 800 million yuan since the beginning of 2025. It goes on to say that UBTECH Robotics is taking a strategic step to make its production chains more resilient: By investing in the electronics manufacturer Zhejiang Fenglong Electric Co., the company wants to reduce risks in the supply chain while keeping production costs stable. This direct integration of the supplier into the company should also ensure that UBTECH Robotics will be less dependent on external partners for electronics and special hardware in the future. They also want to produce around 5,000 humanoid robots this year and plan to double the number in 2027, it says. According to Börse Global, UBTECH Robotics’ humanoid robots have already received orders worth 1.4 billion yuan, with production of the Walker S2 exceeding 300 units per month. Humanoid robots are becoming the focus of attention worldwide – those who are at the forefront of innovation and production speed could secure potential advantages on the global market.
Svenja Polonyi, editorial team at finanzen.net
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