China's top planner warns of a humanoid robot bubble as more than 150 makers crowd the market

China's economic planning agency publicly acknowledged the risk of a humanoid robot bubble on November 27, 2025, saying the country already has more than 150 humanoid robot companies and that the number is still rising. Li Chao, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission's Policy Research Office and the commission's spokesperson, told the agency's monthly press conference in Beijing that balancing speed against bubbles is a recurring problem for frontier industries and that embodied AI is no exception.

According to the NDRC transcript, Li said the embodied AI industry, with humanoid robots as its flagship, is growing at more than 50% a year, and he cited market research forecasts that it will reach a market size of RMB100 billion by 2030. He added that more than half of the 150-plus humanoid makers are start-ups or companies crossing over from other sectors, and that technology routes, business models and application scenarios are not yet mature.

The key warning was narrow and specific. Li said the influx of new capital is good for innovation, but that the government must guard against two risks: highly repetitive products being launched in clusters, and research and development room being squeezed. The Chinese term he used, 上市, refers here to products reaching the market rather than to stock exchange listings, although the warning landed in the middle of an active fundraising season for the sector.

Li said the NDRC has been studying the industry with other government departments and will fold its response into the special plans being drafted under the 15th Five-Year Plan, which covers 2026 to 2030. He set out three lines of work. The first is to speed up industry standards and an evaluation system and to establish entry and exit mechanisms for embodied AI so that competition is fair. The second is to support companies, universities and research institutes in solving core technical problems, naming coordination between the large reasoning model and the small motion control model, matching cloud and on-device computing, and fusing simulated and real-robot data. The third is to build training grounds and pilot platforms and to share resources nationwide so that robots are deployed faster in real settings.

The embodied AI answer was one item in a wide-ranging briefing that the NDRC said drew more than 60 journalists from over 50 media outlets. The same session covered national pilot bases for AI applications, infrastructure REITs, winter energy supply and the 15th Five-Year Plan consultation, which shows how far humanoid robots have moved into mainstream industrial policy.

The warning came as capital continued to pour into China's robot makers. Hong Kong-listed UBTech agreed on November 25 to place 31,468,000 new H shares at HK$98.80 each, raising gross proceeds of about HK$3,109.04 million, according to its HKEX announcement; it earmarked about 75% of net proceeds for acquisitions or joint ventures over two years. Dobot, the Shenzhen cobot maker, agreed on November 6 to place 16,660,000 H shares at HK$46.80 for gross proceeds of about HK$779.7 million, with 40% of net proceeds set for research including wheeled and biped humanoid robots.

Private rounds kept closing too. RobotEra, founded in August 2023, said on November 27 that it had completed a Series A+ round of nearly RMB1 billion led by Geely Capital, with BAIC Capital, Alibaba Group and Haier Capital participating. Quadruped and humanoid maker DEEP Robotics said on December 9 that it had raised more than RMB500 million in a Series C co-led by CMB International and Huaxia Fund, with funds linked to China Telecom and China Unicom joining. On December 30, OneRobotics, the maker of SwitchBot home robots, listed in Hong Kong under stock code 6600 after raising HK$1,640.01 million at HK$73.80 a share, with its Hong Kong public tranche 254.50 times subscribed.

The NDRC's language matters because it is the agency that drafts China's medium-term plans and approves major investment projects. Its signal is not a ban or a funding freeze. It points toward a standards-led shakeout in which certification and evaluation rules raise the cost of entry for companies that assemble similar bipedal robots from the same domestic actuator, reducer and sensor suppliers, while groups with their own models and production lines are better placed to meet new benchmarks.

The open questions are how strict the entry and exit mechanism will be and who will administer it. Li did not give a timetable, name a lead ministry or say whether the rules would be mandatory. Local governments, which have funded robot parks and subsidised purchases in many provinces, also have incentives that run against consolidation. And the RMB100 billion forecast he cited comes from third-party researchers rather than from an official projection.

Investors should watch for the 15th Five-Year Plan outline at the National People's Congress in March 2026, for a national standard framework for humanoid robots and embodied AI, and for whether fundraising by the leading companies slows or accelerates after the warning.