Unitree Robotics Lists on STAR Market at RMB 444.9B Valuation; Generalist AI Unveils GEN-1.5

Unitree Robotics listed on the STAR Market on August 19, 2026, opening at RMB 1,100 per share with a market value of approximately RMB 444.9 billion. The IPO raised total proceeds of RMB 4.202 billion, of which RMB 2.022 billion will fund intelligent robot model R&D, RMB 1.110 billion will support robot body development, and the remainder will go toward new intelligent robot product development and construction of an intelligent robot manufacturing base. The day before the listing, Gan Xiaobin, deputy director of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology's Department of Science and Technology, said in a speech that the government would explore frontier technologies including brain-inspired intelligence, world models, and physical models. Unitree founder Wang Xingxing noted at the World Robot Conference that the company began research on video-generation-based world models in early 2020 and refocused on this area in 2025, with model development now the company's largest area of capital and manpower investment.

On August 20, Silicon Valley robotics company Generalist AI released its next-generation foundation model, GEN-1.5. The model can execute tasks after watching 3 to 12 seconds of action demonstrations, without requiring training or fine-tuning. Across 10 manipulation tasks, the one-shot mode achieved an average success rate of 59%, while the few-shot mode averaged 83%. The model has been continuously pre-trained for more than eight months, with validation-set curves showing steadily declining prediction error and no signs of convergence. Generalist AI completed a USD 400 million funding round in June 2026 at a post-money valuation of USD 2 billion, and is currently in talks for a new round at a USD 3 billion valuation. The company's co-founders come from Google DeepMind's robotics team and Boston Dynamics.

On August 19, the World Robot Conference opened in Beijing's Yizhuang district, featuring more than 300 companies, over 2,000 exhibits, and more than 150 global debut products. On August 22, the second World Humanoid Robot Games began at the National Speed Skating Oval, with 666 teams bringing 2,056 robots to compete in 1,301 matches across 51 events. The number of teams grew 138% compared with the first edition. The games introduced 21 scenario-based events for the first time, requiring humanoid robots to complete long-horizon tasks in real environments such as factories, hotels, and home services.

Unitree shipped more than 5,500 humanoid robots in 2025, ranking first globally, with revenue of RMB 1.7 billion and a gross margin of 60%. In the first quarter of 2026, revenue growth slowed to 68.49% from 332.64% in the same period of 2025, while net profit excluding non-recurring items fell 52.55% year on year, mainly due to a sharp increase in R&D spending. 2026 is being called a big year for embodied intelligence listings, with more than 20 companies having confirmed IPO plans.