China's robotics industry has had a remarkable few days. China may not match what goes on inside Tesla, which makes Optimus humanoid, or Boston Dynamics, which is known for its humanoid Atlas, but on the ground it may be winning the robot race, for now.
Recent reports describe how in Hangzhou a 1.88-metre wheeled "Robocop" is policing traffic, with 15 machines reportedly issuing more than 170,000 warnings since May. In Shanghai, Unitree's shares surged as much as 629% on their debut after an IPO that was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed. Two days earlier, Unitree had unveiled "Superman", a biped that can jump two metres from a standing start and reach 12.66 metres per second, faster than global record holder athlete Usain Bolt. In Beijing, more than 300 companies are showing thousands of robots at the World Robot Conference, underlining a shift from robots that perform spectacular tricks to machines being tested for actual work.
