Thomas Derksen 阿福

China robotics from the ground.
10+ years in Shanghai. Humanoids, supply chain, Shenzhen factories.
The numbers press releases leave out.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@96Stats Studying in China was one of the best decisions in my life.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@CHOCOLATE_6840 Studying in China changed my life.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@PeterDiamandis I see the same for robotics here in China. This is a video from a normal shopping mall here.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@ScottPatterson0 @antopatrex1 In China you have everything in one place.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

China exported 10.4 million robots in the first five months of this year. Almost none of them were humanoids.

Customs put the value at 19.99 billion yuan and cleaning robots account for 14 billion of it, over seventy percent. Divide the total out and the average robot leaving the country is worth about 1,900 yuan, call it 270 dollars. Of the 6,700 China robotics companies we track, the ones filling those containers make floor cleaners.

That business is what keeps the supply chain for motors, gearboxes and batteries running at volume, and volume is the reason a Chinese humanoid bill of materials looks the way it does.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

Unitree Just Made Its Own Engineers Millionaires https://t.co/raRYP0qK8h via @YouTube

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

Nothing to see here. Just a normal Saturday morning in a mall here in China....

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

No Chinese factory shipped 5,000 humanoid robots in one afternoon. The claim is on my timeline three times this morning.

@AgiBot_zhiyuan rolled its 5,000th mass produced humanoid off the line in December. Their own release says 5,000th, with the th. It is a cumulative count: two years for the first 1,000, another year to get to 5,000, then three months to double it. They passed 10,000 at the end of March.

AgiBot builds here in Shanghai and the supply chain is what they credit for that last stretch. That is usually where these jumps in China robotics start, a few months earlier and one tier down at the component suppliers.

[clankr @clankrmedia]

JUST IN: DeepSeek and Unitree are partnering on humanoid AI.

They will collaborate on foundation models.

DeepSeek will prioritize Unitree for robotics development.

It also bought $20.8M worth of shares in Unitree’s IPO.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@ruima Why should people be mad about you telling the truth? ;)

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@UnitreeRobotics lists in Shanghai with a profit. That is the part the Western coverage buried under the 9 billion dollar valuation.

150.80 yuan a share, 1.7 billion yuan in revenue, roughly 600 million yuan in adjusted profit. Figure AI is carried at 39 billion dollars with almost no disclosed revenue, and until now nobody had to defend that gap against a daily share price.

@deepseek_ai took 933,399 shares in the strategic placement and signed a deal to build humanoid models with them. That share count is in the Chinese announcement, the English write-ups mostly stopped at the valuation. Both companies sit in Hangzhou. I did not expect China robotics and the country's best model lab on one cap table this fast.

[Leonard M. Schmedding @derleomartin]

„Der Elektroauto-Schock ist gerade in Deutschland angekommen. Da kann ich nur drüber LACHEN! In China ist das Thema längst abgehakt. Kein Mensch spricht mehr über EVs."

@ThomasD_TBB ist der größte deutsche China-Creator und lebt seit 12 Jahren im Land. Heute führt er deutsche Unternehmer durch die Welt der Humanoiden Roboter in China.

Wovon er hier spricht: Für China sind E-Autos abgehakt. Das nächste Thema heißt ROBOTIK.

Doch warum wollen jetzt auf einmal alle nach Shenzhen? „In einem Umkreis von 100 Kilometern haben wir das Kapital, die Forschung, die Ingenieure und die Produktion. Es gibt Aktuatoren, die es nur in Shenzhen gibt. Nirgendwo anders auf der Welt."

„Meine Freunde bauen Roboter. Die machen morgens einen Blueprint von einem Teil, schicken den an die Fabrik und am späten Nachmittag haben sie es bei sich im Büro. Wenn du das in Deutschland machst oder in den USA, musst du zwei Monate auf das Teil warten."

Und was heißt das für deutsche Zulieferer?

„Es gibt ungefähr eine 60-prozentige Überlappung zwischen Komponenten für Elektroautos und Humanoiden. Noch ist nichts standardisiert. Man hat jetzt die Möglichkeit auf ein Multimilliarden-Geschäft, wenn man es smart macht."

„Aber die Chinesen schlafen nicht. Man kann keine Zeit mehr verschwenden."

Ich habe ihn gefragt, welche Roboter heute schon Geld verdienen.

„Mit den Humanoiden ist es wie mit den Schimpansen im Zoo. Die faszinieren, weil sie uns so ähnlich sehen. Aber die Zebras und die Flamingos, das sind die Reinigungsroboter und die Delivery-Roboter. Die sind schon wahnsinnig weit. Damit gehst du nur nicht viral."

Im Interview sprechen wir außerdem über das Robot Valley, den Mythos Social Credit und die Frage, wo deutsche Zulieferer jetzt noch reinkommen.

„Ich habe Videos gesehen von alten Menschen, die heulend vor ihrem Handy sitzen. Die 20- und 30-Jährigen finden das ganz furchtbar. Aber die, um die es geht, sehen das völlig anders."

„Wenn du dich mit China beschäftigst, musst du lernen, Gegensätze auszuhalten. Bestimmte Wahrheiten, die sich eigentlich ausschließen, können hier beide wahr sein."

[asiabits @asia_bits]

Europeans are utterly amazed by China's speed .

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

China's countermeasures landed on Wednesday, and the shape of them says more than the size.

Washington banned the finished machine. Beijing tightened export controls on drone parts and the technology behind them, with every US bound license now reviewed case by case, and barred an American testing lab from doing business in China over its work with the FCC.

You can build a humanoid without a Chinese logo on it. Actuation runs 40 to 60 percent of what the machine costs, and China handles roughly 90 percent of the world's rare earth magnet processing. BofA put a China sourced bill of materials near $35,000 last year, against $90,000 to $100,000 for a Western pilot build.

The European buyers I bring to Shenzhen stopped asking which robot to buy. They ask where they sit in the China robotics supply chain.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

I will go to visit them next week. Comment your questions or ideas. 👇🏻

[Figurobot @figurobot]

From simulation to reality, our 60cm robot just leveled up its dance moves! 🤖📷
Every upgrade takes it one step closer to becoming a more expressive companion. 📷🚀
#figurobot #humanoid #robots

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

Six weeks before the FCC banned imports of foreign made humanoid robots, @nvidia picked the body for its GR00T reference platform. It picked a @UnitreeRobotics H2 Plus.

That is the China robotics supply chain problem in one line. The American software stack for humanoids was standing on a Chinese chassis, because at that price and that volume there was nothing else to stand on.

Around 15,000 humanoids shipped worldwide last year. Unitree and AGIBOT did over 5,000 each. Tesla and Figure did a few hundred or less.

The ban covers new models seeking authorization, so the labs that already have their robots keep working. The open question is what the next lab buys in September.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@_joe_harris_ I met so many friends here in China who moved from luxury, automotive or electronics to the robotics industry.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

As @UnitreeRobotics is about to make a lot of their engineers millionaires, I’m sure many more people will want to move into the robotics industry.

[Joe Harris @_joe_harris_]

if you're looking for a new role, 2026 is the best time to join a robotics startup:

1. there’s more money than ever. robotics startups have already raised ~$18.8B this year, beating all of 2025 and the previous record year.

2. there aren’t enough people to do the work. US reports ~340k+ open robotics roles and 65k+ engineering openings, with senior autonomy / ML / controls supply‑constrained.

3. hiring is across every discipline. dozens of well‑funded teams now need perception, controls, platform, data, FDEs, not just PhDs

4. ops and cross‑domain skills become more valuable as the startup scales. people from SaaS, infra, AV, manufacturing, and electronics are being hired in to run deployments, build tooling, and make robots work in real environments

5. the wave is still early enough. funding has gone vertical, but most commercial deployments are just getting started.

6. because its fun/hard/bold. and do you really want to be building another delivery app? (reverse uno card where doordash is now a robotics company!)

five years ago this was niche. now it’s one of the best places to spend a decade of your career.

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

Maybe if it is a equipped with a handgun they will...

[Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw @kiranshaw]

It won't get tired, won't lose patience, and probably won't argue with impatient drivers. Now the only question is whether the drivers listen to a robot any better than they do to humans?

[Thomas Derksen 阿福 @ThomasD_TBB]

@Ryan_Resolution Awesome