A humanoid robot made by Hangzhou-based robotics start-up Unitree greets spectators with handshakes at the China International Fashion Fair in Shanghai on March 13, 2025. Photo: VCG
As China's humanoid robot industry has experienced rapid advancements in both technological development and application, a related market segment is also witnessing surging demand: humanoid robot rentals, some industry practitioners told the Global Times on Monday.
"The G1 model from Unitree Robotics has received the most orders, with a daily rental fee of about 10,000 yuan ($1,400). We have five Unitree G1 units, and by early March, all rental slots for the month were fully booked," Yu Jian, general manager of Jike Robotics, a robot manufacturing and rental company, told the Global Times on Monday.
Yu said that due to the strong demand, the company plans to acquire an additional three Unitree G1 units, adding that the rented robots are widely used across various industries, including real estate marketing, the vehicle sector, livestreaming, and education.
Land Mark, another company specializing in robot rentals and digital intelligence services, reported a demand surge for robot rentals following the Spring Festival. The company officially launched its robot rental service in February, and orders and inquiries have been flowing in steadily ever since, Zhao Binran, general manager of Land Mark, told the Global Times on Monday.
"Previously, we received one or two customer inquiries per day, but now we handle 10 to 20 daily, with a significantly higher conversion rate. For every 10 inquiries, we typically secure two or three orders," Zhao said.
The largest share of these rental orders is for exhibition guidance and event planning, accounting for about 50 percent. Another category involves businesses or factories renting robots for daily reception duties over a set period, according to Zhao.
The company had to turn down some rental requests due to overwhelming demand. Zhao said that the company has eight Unitree G1 robots, with plans to reserve three for research and development (R&D) and rent out five. "I find myself constantly debating whether to rent out the robots originally intended for R&D," Zhao said.
This emerging market opportunity is a reflection of China's rapidly growing robotics sector, industry market watchers said, adding that the evolution of humanoid robots is fueled not only by innovative start-ups but also by increasingly sophisticated technological support.
"We are committed to further advancing the robot industry. To this end, we have opened our robot interface data and made numerous software tools available as open source," a representative of Unitree Robotics, the developer of the popular Unitree G1, told the Global Times on Monday, in response to the recent surge in the humanoid rental market.
Some industry players said that China's robot rental industry is not focused on a single brand but is instead gaining a competitive edge through improved after-sales services and maintenance networks. This strategy prioritizes diversity and comprehensiveness, with the ultimate goal of addressing consumers' practical needs for robots.
According to data released by the Chinese Institute of Electronics, China's humanoid robot market is expected to reach a scale of about 870 billion yuan by 2030.
Meanwhile, technological advancement continues in China's robotics industry. A recent research breakthrough, "BeamDojo," developed jointly by the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Shanghai Jiao Tong University and other institutions, has attracted significant attention. This reinforcement learning framework is designed to enable humanoid robots to move flexibly on sparse footholds, the Securities Times reported.
It has been applied to Unitree Robotics' G1 humanoid robot, allowing it to easily perform complex tasks such as walking on a balance beam and navigating stepping stones. It maintains precise and smooth movement, even when carrying heavy loads or being subjected to external forces, according to the report.
