TrendForce’s April 9 report is the clearest demand-side data point the humanoid sector has produced. China’s humanoid robot output is projected to surge 94% in 2026, and two companies — Unitree Robotics and AgiBot — are on track to capture approximately 80% of that volume. AgiBot shipped its 10,000th unit, the fastest publicly disclosed scaling rate in sector history. Unitree, under active Shanghai Stock Exchange review for a $608M STAR Market IPO, disclosed a ~59.5% gross margin — a figure that upends the assumption that humanoid production is inherently cash-destructive. The IPO filing targets annual capacity of 75,000 humanoid robots and 115,000 quadrupeds.

The supply side confirmed the demand side on April 10, when Leju Robotics and Dongfang Precision opened a fully automated humanoid production line in Foshan, Guangdong. One robot rolls off the line every 30 minutes. The facility runs 24 assembly stages with 77 inspection checkpoints — a quality-control architecture borrowed from automotive OEM playbooks. At that throughput, the Foshan line alone delivers 10,000 units per year. It is the first humanoid factory built to automotive manufacturing standards, operational the same week TrendForce published its output forecast.

Operators should read one number carefully: Unitree’s ~59.5% gross margin. That margin implies the price-per-unit can compress while the manufacturer stays solvent — the dynamic that enables broad industrial deployment. The capital behind this is patient and institutional. Galbot, whose G1 humanoid headlined China’s Spring Festival Gala, closed a $350M late-stage round backed by the National IC Fund, Sinopec, and CITIC affiliates, bringing total funding to $968M. State-linked capital is not speculating on humanoids — it is funding capacity.

State-linked funds (National IC Fund, Sinopec), sovereign-aligned capital, and public equity markets via the STAR Market IPO. The Unitree offering, if approved, would be the first profitable humanoid company to list.

The 94% output surge is a projection. The Foshan factory’s customer pipeline — how much of that 10,000-unit/year capacity is pre-sold — has not been disclosed. If commercial deployment stalls in H2 2026, capacity build will outrun demand and margin compression follows.

Unitree’s H1 arrives with a fresh outdoor speed record: 10 m/s (36 km/h) on an athletic track, achieved April 11. The H1 runs on self-developed M107 actuators generating 360 Nm of peak knee torque, with a reinforcement-learning gait controller recalculating ground-impact forces thousands of times per second — across 0.8 m human-scale legs in a 62 kg operating configuration. That reclaims the bipedal world record from Zhejiang University’s “Bolt.” The same actuator system powering that speed record underpins the 75,000-unit/year production target — verify that demo hardware and production hardware are the same build before procurement.

Weekly Question: When post-race data from the April 19 Beijing half-marathon publishes, will the fully autonomous completion rate exceed 50% of the 300 entrants — and which manufacturer posts the highest autonomous-finish ratio? Results expected within 7 days of race completion.

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