The overseas expansion of Chinese robotics companies is entering a delicate phase.

In recent years, when overseas customers discussed Chinese robots, the keywords were often ‘price,’ ‘delivery,’ ‘speed,’ and ‘supply chain.’ However, as industrial, service, warehouse, quadruped, and even humanoid robots accelerate their entry into overseas factories, hotels, warehouses, hospitals, and public spaces, new issues are emerging. Whether overseas markets can afford Chinese robots is no longer the only question; whether customers dare to use them long-term and can deploy them with peace of mind is becoming a more critical concern.

This is the next threshold for Chinese robots going global: trust. This trust is not simply about brand affinity, but an entire set of systemic capabilities: Is the data secure? Is the software auditable? Will the robots cause injury? Is remote operation and maintenance transparent? Can after-sales service respond promptly? Is the supply chain stable? Can the enterprise pass local certifications? Will the product be subjected to national security reviews?

In other words, the global expansion of Chinese robotics is shifting from ‘selling hardware’ to ‘selling trusted systems.’

Robot Telegraph Analysis: The first half of Chinese robotics going global was a competition of price, supply chain, and delivery speed. The second half will be a competition of trust, compliance, and long-term service capabilities.

The overseas expansion of Chinese robotics is no longer a niche business.

Looking at trade data, the global expansion of Chinese robots already has a solid foundation of scale. At a press conference on the full-year import and export situation for 2025, the General Administration of Customs disclosed that China’s industrial robot exports grew by 48.7% year-on-year in 2025. Exports surpassed imports for the first time, making China a net exporter of industrial robots. This shift indicates that Chinese robots are no longer just supporting products for domestic manufacturing automation, but have begun to become export-oriented products in the global industrial chain.

At the corporate level, warehouse, service, and industrial robotics companies have already proven the viability of overseas markets. Pudu Robotics’ official website shows that it has cumulatively shipped over 130,000 units globally, with operations covering more than 85 countries and regions. Its applications span retail, hospitality, manufacturing, property management, healthcare, education, and public services. Geek+ disclosed that, as of June 30, 2025, it has delivered over 66,000 robots to more than 40 countries and regions worldwide, establishing an overseas service station, spare parts center, and engineer network.

These companies represent the first stage of Chinese robotics going global: entering the global market relying on cost, supply chain, and delivery efficiency. Unlike humanoid robots, which consistently generate internet traffic, they entered real-world commercial scenarios earlier and faced tests from overseas customers regarding reliability, maintenance, and service networks sooner.

However, the emergence of humanoid robots and embodied AI has pushed the issue of going global to a more complex level. Following the approval of Unitree Robotics’ IPO registration on the STAR Market, Reuters reported that the company plans to raise 4.2 billion RMB. These funds will be used for robotic AI models, hardware R&D, new product development, and the construction of an intelligent robotics manufacturing base. This means that the next wave of Chinese robotics companies going global will not only include industrial and service robots, but may also encompass a new generation of intelligent robots equipped with vision, voice, perception, mobility, and remote update capabilities.

The questions have also changed accordingly: overseas markets will no longer just ask ‘how much does it cost per unit,’ but will also ask ‘what does it see, what does it record, where does it connect to, and who is responsible if an accident occurs?’

Pricing advantages remain important, but cannot solve all problems.

The underlying advantage of Chinese robots going global remains the supply chain. Motors, reducers, structural components, sensors, batteries, controllers, final assembly, and rapid iteration capabilities allow Chinese companies to transform prototypes into products faster and drive high-priced equipment into lower price brackets.

This is highly attractive to overseas customers. Whether in warehousing and logistics, food delivery, commercial cleaning, campus patrol, or factory loading and unloading, customers ultimately have to calculate the ROI: how much repetitive labor the robot can replace, how long the payback period is, what the maintenance costs are, and how much downtime losses will amount to.

But robots are different from standard hardware. A sale does not mean the end of the transaction; they operate long-term on customer sites. AI robots, mobile robots, and humanoid robots, in particular, typically feature cameras, LiDAR, microphones, wireless communication modules, cloud backends, and OTA (Over-The-Air) update capabilities. These features make robots smarter, but also inherently turn them into ‘mobile data terminals.’

This implies that the more obvious the price advantage of Chinese robots becomes, the more overseas markets will question them: Is there a data security risk behind the low price? Is the remote connection controllable? Are software updates transparent? Will the supply chain be affected by political factors?

The Trust Threshold: Data and Cybersecurity

Going global, robots first face the issue of data security. Traditional industrial equipment mostly operates at fixed stations, whereas next-generation robots can move, perceive, and recognize their environment. The data they collect includes not only production metrics but potentially also factory layouts, personnel activities, material flows, equipment status, client business intelligence, and even public space imagery. For overseas regulatory agencies and enterprise clients, such equipment is not just ordinary machinery, but ‘intelligent terminals with eyes, ears, and network connections.’

The United States has already begun to institutionalize a response to this. The U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party announced that some lawmakers introduced the ‘GUARD Act,’ which calls for screening robots from ‘foreign adversaries’ like China and banning the import of robots deemed a national security threat. It must be emphasized that this is still a proposed bill and not yet law, but the signal is clear: robots could be brought under a national security review framework similar to that applied to drones and telecommunications equipment.

For Chinese robotics companies, this means that future overseas expansion requires more than just a product manual. They must also prepare cybersecurity white papers, data processing protocols, cloud deployment solutions, source code audit mechanisms, localized data storage plans, and third-party security certifications. Whoever can prove that ‘data is not transmitted back, permissions are controllable, updates are auditable, and operations are traceable’ will more easily earn the trust of overseas clients.

The Trust Threshold: Safety Liability and Regulatory Certification

Entering overseas markets, robots must also pass the test of safety regulations and liability frameworks. The European Union is the most typical market. Officially described by the EU as the world’s first comprehensive AI legal framework, the EU AI Act aims to promote ‘trustworthy AI.’ For AI systems embedded in products that affect health and safety, EU regulatory logic places greater emphasis on risk classification, technical documentation, human oversight, robustness, and cybersecurity.

At the same time, the EU Machinery Regulation (Regulation 2023/1230) sets health and safety requirements for mechanical equipment entering the European market, and will become mandatory starting January 20, 2027. This means that AI robots entering Europe face not a single product certification, but an overlapping review of ‘machinery safety + AI compliance + cybersecurity + liability traceability.’

For traditional mechanical equipment, risks generally stem from the physical structure; for AI robots, risks also arise from algorithmic decisions. If a robot misidentifies personnel in a warehouse, collides during human-robot collaboration, alters its behavior due to an OTA update, or causes abnormal movements due to a cyberattack, how is liability divided? Is it the OEM, the software provider, the deployment party, the cloud service provider, or the on-site operator who bears the responsibility?

Such questions will become key concerns for overseas customers prior to purchase. If Chinese companies only emphasize price and performance without comprehensive risk assessments, incident logs, insurance mechanisms, and local compliance teams, it will be increasingly difficult for them to enter high-end markets.

The Trust Threshold: After-Sales Service, Spare Parts, and Local Support

Robots are not disposable consumer goods; they are tools of production. For an overseas client, the true cost of a robot is not just the purchase price, but also includes deployment, training, maintenance, spare parts, downtime, software subscriptions, and secondary development.

This is why early globalizers like Geek+ and Pudu are heavily emphasizing their overseas service networks. Geek+ disclosed that its global service system includes over 52 service stations, 12 spare parts centers, and more than 310 engineers. Pudu also lists its overseas subsidiaries in Japan, South Korea, the United States, Germany, and other countries, demonstrating its global coverage capabilities on its official website.

This reveals a fundamental fact: for Chinese robots going global, it is not just about shipping the hardware overseas, but about bringing service capabilities abroad. Especially in B2B scenarios, what customers fear most is not paying too much for a robot, but rather having no one to repair it when issues arise, no one to manage system upgrades, unavailable spare parts, and local engineers who cannot debug the systems. A price advantage can help a company win the first order, but service capability determines whether the customer will repurchase.

The Trust Barrier: From “Trusted Product” to “Trusted Enterprise”

For Chinese robotics companies, the further they move upmarket overseas, the more customers value the transparency and governance of the enterprise itself.

For example, the partnership between UBTech and Airbus is a highly representative signal. Reuters reported that UBTech has reached an agreement with Airbus to deploy the Walker S2 in aviation manufacturing scenarios; however, Airbus also emphasized that the collaboration is still in the early testing phase. This indicates that major international clients are not averse to adopting Chinese robots, but they will first verify reliability, safety, and scenario adaptability through rigorous testing.

The key here is not just whether the robot can perform the required actions, but whether the company can provide continuous technical support, meet the process requirements of high-standard industries like aviation manufacturing, and prove its stability through long-term testing.

Moving forward, if Chinese robotics companies want to enter high-value overseas scenarios such as automotive, aviation, pharmaceuticals, energy, and public infrastructure, they must upgrade from “product suppliers” to “trusted technology partners.” This requires companies to establish more standardized quality systems, more transparent software version management, more reliable supply chain traceability, and more mature local legal and compliance capabilities.

The Biggest Risk: Robots Might Replay the Overseas Controversies of Drones and NEVs

The overseas expansion of Chinese robots may partially replay the experiences of drones, new energy vehicles (NEVs), and telecommunications equipment. The similarity lies in the fact that Chinese companies have clear supply chain and cost advantages, and can rapidly push their products to the global market. The difference is that robots are more complex: they are both hardware and software; both equipment and data terminals; and they operate not only in factories but may also enter public spaces and even homes.

This makes them more likely to be brought under the safety frameworks of overseas regulators. Quadruped robots might be used for inspection or security; humanoid robots might be used in factories, but they could also enter airports, hospitals, schools, and elderly care facilities; warehouse robots might optimize logistics, but they could also record supply chain flows. The deeper these applications penetrate, the higher the regulatory sensitivity.

Therefore, what Chinese robotics companies must truly avoid when expanding overseas is positioning themselves merely as “cheaper equipment.” A more prudent approach to global expansion is to establish themselves as providers of “verifiable, auditable, maintainable, and compliant intelligent equipment.”

Robot Telegram Analysis: Trust Will Become the New Price

Robot Telegram predicts that over the next three to five years, a clear divergence will emerge among Chinese robotics companies expanding overseas. The first type of company will rely on price and channels to enter the mid-to-low-end market, but they will be easily replaceable; the second type will rely on technology and services to penetrate key industries, enabling customer repurchases; the third type will access high-value markets through safety, data, compliance, and localization capabilities, and only these will be able to become truly global brands.

Historically, the global competitiveness of Chinese robots has primarily stemmed from their “cost-effectiveness.” In the future, cost-effectiveness will remain important, but it will no longer be sufficient. Overseas customers will increasingly focus on hidden costs: compliance costs, downtime costs, security costs, data risk costs, and political scrutiny costs.

Consequently, the real question Chinese robotics companies need to answer is no longer “how much cheaper are we than the competition,” but rather “why would customers dare to put our robots in their factories, warehouses, hospitals, and public spaces?”

Whoever can answer this question will transition from simply exporting goods to globalized operations; whoever cannot answer it may secure short-term orders, but will ultimately stall when faced with higher-barrier markets. The first half of the global expansion of Chinese robotics was a competition of price, supply chain, and delivery speed; the second half will be a competition of trust, compliance, and long-term service capabilities.

For robots to go global, they must first give the world peace of mind.

Key References

1. General Administration of Customs: Press Conference on 2025 Annual Import and Export Situation: https://www.customs.gov.cn/customs/xwfb34/302330/hgzs2025nqsjdjckqkxwfbh/index.html

2. Pudu Robotics Company Introduction: https://www.pudurobotics.com/en/company

3. Geek+: IPO Interim Results and Global Delivery Information: https://www.geekplus.com/resources/news/ipo-interim-results

4. Reuters: Unitree Approved for Shanghai IPO: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/chinese-robot-maker-unitree-wins-approval-619-million-shanghai-ipo-2026-07-03/

5. U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party: Information on the GUARD Act: https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/media/press-releases/moolenaar-obernolte-mcclellan-introduce-legislation-to-ban-dangerous-chinese-robots

6. Introduction to the EU AI Act: https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/regulatory-framework-ai

7. EU Machinery Regulation 2023/1230: https://osha.europa.eu/en/legislation/directive/regulation-20231230eu-machinery

8. Reuters: Report on UBTech and Airbus Partnership: https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/ubtech-agrees-airbus-deal-expand-robot-use-aviation-manufacturing-2026-01-21/