China can build humanoids at scale. The hard part is finding enough buyers

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Workers assemble robot legs components at the LY iTech Beijing Super Factory for Embodied Artificial Intelligence during a media tour in the Beijing E-Town on the outskirts of Beijing on May 29, 2026.

Andy Wong/AP Photo/Andy Wong

Workers assemble robot at the LY iTech Beijing Super Factory for Embodied Artificial Intelligence during a media tour in the Beijing E-Town on the outskirts of Beijing on May 29, 2026.

Andy Wong/AP Photo/Andy Wong

Workers assemble robot at the LY iTech Beijing Super Factory for Embodied Artificial Intelligence during a media tour in the Beijing E-Town on the outskirts of Beijing on May 29, 2026.

Andy Wong/AP Photo/Andy Wong

Workers assemble robot at the LY iTech Beijing Super Factory for Embodied Artificial Intelligence during a media tour in the Beijing E-Town on the outskirts of Beijing on May 29, 2026.

Andy Wong/AP Photo/Andy Wong

HONG KONG (AP) — Chinese-made humanoid robots are making waves with their ability to do backflips, direct traffic, and even make coffee as the companies developing them seek ways to expand and dominate the market.

Robot makers in China say they have thousands of orders from both the government and private businesses for humanoids that can do such things as sort parcels at postal centers, as the country finds ways to cope with an aging population and rising labor costs. However, some experts believe demand for humanoids lags the capacity to build them.

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China and the United States dominate research for what Morgan Stanley estimates is a $5 trillion humanoid robots market.

By some measures, the U.S. holds an upper hand in developing the artificial intelligence for such robots’ high-level computing power, or “brains.” But as the world’s factory floor, China…

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