State-Backed Data Hubs Drive China’s Humanoid Robot Sales

China’s humanoid robot industry is scaling faster than end-user demand, leaving government-backed data collection and training centers as crucial buyers. The facilities acquire machines from vendors including UBTech Robotics, AgiBot and Unitree, then use teleoperators to repeat industrial and household tasks and generate labeled data for embodied-AI models. Manufacturers, their data subsidiaries or affiliated service providers may then buy the datasets back, creating a state-supported loop linking robot orders, physical-world data and model development.

By the end of April 2026, China had at least 90 humanoid data collection and training centers operating or planned, with 64 already running and 13 deploying at least 100 robots. UBTech signed at least six center-related contracts worth about 829 million yuan in the fourth quarter of 2025, including 159 million yuan in Zigong, 59.62 million yuan in Huizhou’s Huiyang district and 264 million yuan in Fangchenggang, Guangxi. Those projects represented 59% of UBTech’s nearly 1.4 billion yuan in signed orders for 2025.