American investors are touring China’s robot factories to size up the competition

Last year, whenever Ryan Cunningham, a Silicon Valley investor, floated a trip to China in a WhatsApp collection of robotics investors, the reply was lukewarm. One individual jokingly asked if he could smuggle a humanoid robot home.

This year, the jokes have stated way to journey plans.

Cunningham, the originator of Edgerunner Ventures, a project chief resolute that backs energy and computing startups, is preparedness an April trip to China for 10 investors. Nearly all capitalist collection conversation he is in now trades notes on latest or upcoming excursions to China, he told Business Insider, as project capitalists gauge China's hardware prowess to see what American robotics startups are up against.

"The logic I desire to bring them to China is since I desire to obtain them by the shoulders and say, 'Guys, if you desire to get serious, this is what we have to be learning from,'" stated Cunningham, who visited Shanghai final twelvemonth for the World Artificial Intelligence Conference, an annual gathering for the AI industry.

Cunningham is among a expanding cadre of Silicon Valley investors heading east to see how China built its border in robotics and another hardware. For many, the item is not to scout Chinese investments. It is to size up the rivals confronting their US portfolio companies.

The excursions range from personal VC delegations to $10,000-a-head tours that brace factory visits alongside translators, five-star hotels, and dinners alongside local tech executives.

Behind the tours is the sobering realization that China has established a formidable guide in crucial parts of robotics, from manufacturing and provision chains to deploying machines and collecting the data needed to enhance them.

Chinese companies Unitree and AgiBot together shipped 71% of the world's humanoid robots final year, according to investigation resolute Omdia. China additionally controls 63% of the key companies in the earth provision sequence for humanoid-robot components, according to the Mercator Institute for China Studies, a German think tank. Meanwhile, most American humanoids are motionless in betterment and not accessible off the shelf. Most US companies depend on Chinese suppliers for components or assembly, according to Stanford's 2026 Emerging Technology Review.

The stakes are elevated for US investors pouring prosperity into robotics and bodily AI. They are betting that advances in AI, cheaper hardware, labor shortages, and the shove to reshore manufacturing can mint the next generation of innovation giants. Robotics, meanwhile, is increasingly viewed as a national-security concern. In July, the Federal Communications Commission banned new foreign-made "advanced robotic devices," citing "unacceptable risks" to national security.

Robotics may be Silicon Valley's latest obsession, but China has spent years construction up its industry.

"The Chinese have been extremely hardware focused," Wendy Chang, a elder expert at the Mercator Institute for China Studies, told Business Insider. "They are trying to own the entire robotics provision chain."

In a 2023 guideline document, China's authorities compared the possible effect of humanoid robots alongside that of computers, smartphones, and electric vehicles. It laid out a scheme to deploy humanoid robots throughout the economics by 2027.

China's caput commencement has drawn American investors in for a bit of rivalrous snooping. In latest months, dozens of VCs, including investors from Eclipse, G2 Venture Partners, and Chemistry VC, have traveled to China. Partners from Founders Fund and Khosla Ventures have additionally made trips, The Information reported final month.

A actuality inspect for Silicon Valley

Late final year, partners at Bay Area-based G2 decided they needed a clearer perspective of China. The firm, which spun out of Kleiner Perkins, invests in growth-stage companies construction innovation for bodily industries, including energy, manufacturing, and transportation.

"We knew they were ahead, but it doesn't really hit you until you're on the ground," stated Neel Mehta, a G2 investor, who traveled to Shenzhen and Beijing alongside a coworker before this year.

Mehta and his coworker built their trip about Morgan Stanley's China Summit in Shenzhen, which included site trips to robotics and autonomous-vehicle companies. They additionally arranged visits to Xiaomi, the person electronics elephantine that has expanded into electric vehicles, and to EV creator BYD.

For years, Mehta said, US investors had dismissed Chinese innovation as lesser quality. Conventional knowledge held that China power have an border in manufacturing, but the US would continually build improved AI. Mehta returned to the Bay Area convinced the two assumptions were wrong.

At a Xiaomi dealership in Shenzhen, Mehta saw the company's flagship SU7 electric car, which starts at about $30,000.

"The norm and complete is everything you'd anticipate in a luxury car akin Porsche, no exaggeration," Mehta said. The car is not sold in the US, anywhere Chinese EV imports visage restrictions and a 100% tariff.

Mehta was additionally struck by China's data-collection efforts. Robotics companies need ample amounts of real-world data to train systems to comprehend their surroundings and execute bodily tasks. At one data-collection farm, he saw hundreds of workers stationed in pods about the clock, teleoperating robots to create it at scale.

"If you think data is the center bottleneck in robotics, there's a earth in which they have improved models than anyone else," he said.

Rui Ma, who runs Tech Buzz China, a podcast and investigation phase covering China's innovation industry, told Business Insider that Silicon Valley's renewed curiosity concerning China follows years of US-China tensions and a chill in cross-border investment. That has begun to alter as mighty models from Chinese AI companies, including DeepSeek, Alibaba's Qwen, and Moonshot AI's Kimi, have made China's scientific gains harder to dismiss.

"It's extremely particular to the DeepSeek moment," Ma said, referring to the Chinese company's 2025 publish of an AI example that shook Silicon Valley. "People are like, 'Oh wow, China really has AI and another technologies value paying notice to.'"

The DeepSeek wake-up call

Ma began organizing tours to China in 2019, but paused them during the pandemic. This year, she has seen an uptick in involvement from Silicon Valley investors and has led two tours: one focused on AI and another on robotics.

"Most group are trying to comprehend how what's happening in China impacts their portfolio," she said.

The weeklong programs disbursal concerning $10,000 per person, which Ma stated is comparable to administrator learning courses. From the instant participants land, her squad handles all item of the itinerary. Groups typically sojourn two or three cities, touring factories and joining fireside conversations alongside English-speaking tech executives.

"I akin to obtain group to see things they'll be study concerning six months later," Ma said. On a latest trip, she took participants to a brain-computer-interface company.

For Doon Insights, a California-based investigation and events company, expanding capitalist involvement in China is a endeavor opportunity. The business is pitching investors and executives on a 12-day "Robotics Study Mission" in November, alongside stops in Shanghai, Changzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing.

The itinerary includes visits to humanoid creator AgiBot, autonomous-air-taxi business EHang, and multiple robot component manufacturers, according to an itinerary viewed by Business Insider. Participants volition additionally stroll through Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei electronics market — frequently called the "Silicon Valley of Hardware" — and sojourn automated farms and instant-noodle elephantine Master Kong. Each leg starts alongside an expert panel and includes dinners alongside local endeavor and innovation leaders.

"It's straightforward admission to the group and innovation defining what is coming next out of China," the itinerary boasts. Doon Insights declined a petition for comment.

Weighing new risks

The trips to China are changing how investors measure US robotics companies. In April, Charly Mwangi, a partner at Eclipse, a project resolute that invests in companies construction for the bodily economy, and his colleagues remaining their activity laptops at residence and boarded a 14-hour Air China escape from San Francisco.

Mwangi, a erstwhile Tesla and Rivian executive, stated the collection was struck by China's capability to rotate ideas into bodily products. "In the US, we've figured out vibe coding," he said. "In China, they've figured out vibe manufacturing."

Yet Mwangi stated the robots' cognitive abilities were far small impressive. At one company, a robot could dancing and do martial arts, he said, but it could not choice up a flask and put it in a trash can.

Both Eclipse and G2 are taking China much additional earnestly as they measure possible investments. After seeing the Chinese government's authority complete the innovation ecosystem, Mwangi believes that construction their own robots is a matter of national sovereignty.

"Everyone starting now volition have to leverage the Chinese provision chain, and afterward complete time, extremely quickly commencement figuring out alternatives," he said.

After presenting their findings from the China trip to the remainder of the firm, Mehta stated that G2 has begun weighing China-related risks in all possible investment.

"We're thinking, five to 10 years from now, what is going to be the China equivalent?" he said. "And does the US type of the business have a durable advantage?"

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