I Toured Unitree's Factory. I'm More Bullish on the West than ever

A tour of Unitree’s Hangzhou factory challenges the idea that China’s robot industry is already built on automated production. Much of the actuator work still relies on people using conventional winding equipment; the company’s own filings describe robot assembly as mainly manual. Unitree made nearly 32,000 robots in 2025 with machinery valued at about $1.7 million, while labour accounted for only 8% of production costs. Even a new motor line expected to halve labour per motor would reduce one model’s total cost by less than 2%. Automation is limited because humanoid designs change quickly and their main buyers are researchers, not factories: three-quarters of humanoid revenue came from research and education, and less than 5% from industrial work. Purpose-built equipment can become obsolete before it pays for itself.

The case for Western manufacturing rests on different economics. Factory labour is estimated to cost six times more in the US than in China, making automation far more valuable, while restrictions on Chinese-made robots and components narrow the option of relying on low-cost imports. Past examples, from Ford’s assembly line to mechanized tomato harvesting, show that automation follows when products and processes are standardized. AI could now make that possible sooner by reducing the time and expense of programming and adapting robots. The argument is that Western strengths in machine-building, combined with high labour costs and AI-assisted programming, create an opening to automate flexible production rather than simply copy China’s current approach. The challenge is rebuilding domestic capacity to make the industrial machinery and components those factories need.