China Humanoids Survey 2026: High Intent, Gradual Rollouts

Our second annual AlphaWise survey of 94 executives across China's manufacturing, industrial and service sectors indicates that interest in humanoids remains high, with 64% of respondents likely adopters of wheel- or leg-based humanoid robots over the next three years (vs. 62% in 2025), yet deployment timelines have extended by roughly one year, consistent with our view that humanoids remain at an early stage, constrained by data bottlenecks, limited generalization, and hardware reliability. Initial deployments will likely remain small, with most respondents expecting only 1-10 units by end-2028. Upfront cost is now the top adoption challenge (62%), 72% consider prices below Rmb100k financially viable (vs. 53% in 2025), and 82% require a payback of under three years. Manufacturing (90%), logistics/warehousing (85%) and R&D (79%) remain the most promising initial applications, while satisfaction with current humanoid performance fell to 18% from 23%. We expect China humanoid shipments o