The “2025Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Industry Research Report” indicates that by 2025, the market size of embodied intelligence in China is expected to reach 5.295 billion yuan, while the humanoid robot market will reach 8.239 billion yuan, accounting for about half of the global market. In the seven months leading up to 2025, there have been 141 financing events in this field, surpassing the total for the entire year of 2024; among these, there were 51 instances of financing exceeding 100 million yuan, with several leading companies accumulating over 2 billion yuan in financing. This surge in financing is actually a result of the enormous expectations surrounding the embodied intelligence sector, leading to a “land grab” for capital. In the tech venture capital field, investors are often “misled” by entrepreneurs. It is difficult to completely avoid such situations in any emerging field, where the initial step is to create a false impression through packaging, followed by attempts to cover up the gaps.
Watered-down Startups
Amid the wave of artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence robots are seen as the “ultimate carrier of AGI,” with a trillion-level market rapidly unfolding, but shadows lurk beneath the noise. News such as “a certain company has completed financing in the hundreds of millions” and “a major manufacturer has entered the investment” are constantly emerging. Currently, there are also some cleverly packaged “embodied intelligence projects” on the market, which can be quickly formed with just a few steps and take the stage at roadshows. This kind of “remote operation fraud” has become an open “unwritten rule” in the robotics field. Some teams often fabricate member backgrounds, claiming to have “big company backgrounds” or “university team” identities, while actual employees typically do not publicly engage in profit-making activities under their organization’s name. The authenticity of such long-term titles without accountability is often questionable and should be approached with caution.
The so-called “embodied intelligence projects” are even more deceptive. According to their descriptions, these projects often create simple scenes in office areas using cardboard boxes and shelves, disguising themselves as “logistics sorting systems.” The hardware employs two sets of digital servo robotic arm kits, presenting the appearance of four robotic arms working together, while in reality, only two arms are powered, and the main arm is solely for collection purposes. The assembly process is not difficult: the team fixes the two powered arms with aluminum profiles and installs a structured light camera on top to create the illusion of “perception-execution integration.” However, behind this seemingly smooth “fully autonomous sorting” system lies a key scam. The so-called intelligent operation is actually a carefully disguised “remote operation”: during the demonstration, the control line of the digital servo main arm is deliberately extended out of the frame, with personnel manually controlling the actions in the blind spot of the investors’ view. The entire system lacks genuine perception and decision-making capabilities, yet it is openly touted as “fully autonomous intelligent sorting.”
Technology Companies as Trading Firms
Currently, while the humanoid robot field remains hot, there are still few companies genuinely focused on R&D and innovation.
“Except for a few companies that have formed technological influence and are continuously advancing R&D, many startups remain stuck in a shallow model of ‘reselling orders + OEM production,’ and some even rely on exaggerating their technological capabilities to attract financing, which is reminiscent of the development stage of the artificial intelligence industry a few years ago. In the face of doubts about “how to ensure delivery without self-owned production capacity,” they can complete production through OEM factories and emphasize that the robot code is open-source and the manufacturing difficulty is low, believing that “the order itself is the core competitiveness.”
In essence, they are not technology companies but more like trading firms that rely on resources to obtain orders and engage in private label sales, making the authenticity of their orders difficult to verify.