en.Wedoany.com Reported - China's competition in the humanoid robot sector is shifting from locomotion to dexterous manipulation, with industry insiders identifying the ability to make robots use their hands as nimbly as humans as the current core technical bottleneck.
Although humanoid robots have frequently appeared in various public demonstrations across China, multiple industry leaders point out that walking is no longer the primary challenge; the key hurdle lies in teaching robots to manipulate objects with the precision of human hands. This technical demand is fueling rapid growth in the robotic hand market. China is advancing its embodied AI strategy, combining artificial intelligence with machines capable of physical interaction. At the national level, robots are seen as a way to address labor shortages caused by an aging population while cultivating high-value new industries.
China currently has the highest number of installed industrial robots globally, but truly general-purpose humanoid robots are still years away. The International Federation of Robotics concluded last year that "truly versatile humanoid robots are still a long way off," highlighting the difficulty of real-world manipulation tasks.
Nathan Lepora, Professor of Robotics and AI at the University of Bristol, stated that the challenge of manufacturing robot hands is being addressed, but controlling them is another matter. Robot hands need to integrate compact motors, sensors, and joints within the space of a human palm while maintaining sufficient strength to perform delicate tasks.
Zhou Yong, founder of the startup LinkerBot, described this challenge as "a hundred times harder than building a humanoid robot," due to the complex structure and limited space of the hand. Founded in 2023, the company focuses on manufacturing robot hands rather than complete humanoid robots. According to WIRED, LinkerBot produces robot hands with five fingers and at least 11 joints, with some models priced as low as $600 in China. The company claims to have shipped 10,000 robot hands last year and is seeking a $6 billion valuation after multiple funding rounds. Zhou Yong told WIRED that successful companies win through specialization, an approach that allows LinkerBot to supply manufacturers rather than compete directly with robot makers.
China's manufacturing ecosystem provides supply chain advantages for related companies. Thanks to the maturity of the electric vehicle industry, local suppliers already mass-produce components like batteries and motors, making the cost and difficulty of manufacturing robot hardware lower than in many other regions.
Software remains the biggest obstacle. Even as hardware continues to improve, robots still require vast amounts of real-world training data to reliably manipulate everyday objects. Companies collect data through teleoperation systems and wearable devices, recording human hand movements, force application, and interactions with objects to train AI models. Pan Yunzhe, founder of Wuji Technology, stated that simultaneously collecting motion and tactile information remains "extremely complex and unsolved."
China's investment in this field suggests that the next AI competition may extend beyond chatbots and language models to machines capable of performing physical work. If companies solve the dexterous manipulation problem, humanoid robots could move from the demonstration phase into manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, and even home assistance. Cheaper robot hands could also lower the cost of advanced prosthetics, an area LinkerBot says it plans to enter. However, the industry's biggest challenge remains software. Until robots can reliably understand and operate in unpredictable real-world environments, having human-like hands alone will not be enough to make humanoid robots ubiquitous.
