There’s been one major barrier to mass adoption of humanoid robots.
With prices ranging from $50,000-250,000 for U.S. and European robotics manufacturers, that major barrier has been cost.
And while Tesla has suggested a $25,000 price for its own Optimus, it has not made its robot commercially available yet, as it’s been hoarding all of its Optimus production for use in its own factories and offices.
These product economics and the absence of Optimus being commercially available have left a gap in the industry. And one big player has been aggressive to fill it.
China.
Last summer, China-based Unitree released its G1 humanoid robot with a base price of $16,000.
Unitree G1 Humanoid Robot | Source: Unitree
It was a radical drop in price compared to Unitree’s industrial H1 humanoid robot, which starts at $90,000.
The $16,000 G1 isn’t as strong or rugged as the H1, nor does it have as large a battery. But not every humanoid application needs industrial strength.
And with Tesla absorbing all of its own production of Optimus, Unitree’s G1 suddenly became accessible to a much wider range of potential users.
And just a few days ago, Unitree announced the release of its R1 humanoid robot at a base price of just $5,900.
Unitree’s R1 in Action | Source: Unitree
What’s impressive is that the Unitree R1 is a highly functional humanoid robot, with its own multimodal language model capable of understanding and executing voice commands.
Tell an R1 to do a cartwheel, a dance routine, or some tai chi, and it will do it. But those are just parlor tricks – that’s not the purpose of the R1.
Smartly, Unitree has intentionally cut out as much cost as possible to make the R1 accessible to the widest range of customers and users. At $5,900, it’s affordable for a hobbyist and definitely in range for just about any academic institution.
Seeding the market with a cheap development platform is a strategy designed to get universities and corporations working with Unitree’s hardware and software, which will ultimately lead to future purchases of more expensive units.
This is a common product strategy in high tech. And when executed well, it’s game-changing.
And the timing of the release of the R1 isn’t a coincidence.
It came days after Unitree filed early documents for a future IPO.
Unitree is already one of the most prominent robotics companies in the world, albeit with a primary presence in mainland China.
But it is clearly looking to change that with the R1.
I can only describe the R1 and its price point as a hyper-accelerant to this rapidly emerging humanoid robotic trend. To put the price point in context, some consumers spend more for a carbon-fiber bicycle, or their digital cameras and lenses, than the cost of a single R1.
At $5,900, price is no longer an obstacle. And Unitree has just thrown down the gauntlet towards its U.S. and European competitors, which have largely been pursuing industrial and enterprise business models.
There is a rub, however.
Unitree’s R1 doesn’t come with dexterous hands.
There are no fingers that can manipulate objects – just nubs that look like hands.
Unitree does offer an upsell for an additional $5,200 per hand. And for those who would like to have a high-power computing model, that can be purchased, as well.
With these additions, it puts the price range of the R1 above the base price of the G1 and below that of Tesla’s Optimus. But as we know, Tesla is keeping all of its production for itself – at least until next year.
Other major players are way above those price points:
None of them has offered a development model with an inexpensive entry point, nor the ability to program the robot for specific applications.
Unitree’s business motivation is clear: widespread adoption, as soon as possible.
Unitree wants everyone developing on their hardware, much in the same way that NVIDIA proliferated its own software development kits to get everyone working on NVIDIA GPUs.
But there’s a kink.
A few months ago, a couple of clever cybersecurity researchers discovered something ominous in Unitree’s Go1 Robodog, which is largely modeled after Boston Dynamics’ Spot.
Unitree’s Go1 Robodog | Source: Unitree
They found a backdoor.
It was an undocumented, remote-access mechanism – designed to send live video and data back to China, as well as provide complete remote control of the robot from anywhere in the world.
Unitree has since claimed to have removed the backdoor, but what do you think? Do you believe that it has been removed? Does Unitree’s R1 have a similar backdoor?
That’s precisely the concern of U.S. policymakers, as Unitree has deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party.
Policy makers are calling for Unitree to be added to the Department of Commerce’s Entity List, which would restrict its exports to the U.S., as well as partnerships.
They’re also calling for restrictions that would prohibit the use of Unitree’s products in sensitive government locations and around critical U.S. infrastructure.
And rightfully so.
Think about it…
If there were millions of R1s deployed around the world, with high-definition video cameras and sensors capable of real-time video and data collection with a backdoor to China, it would become the world’s largest mobile, real-world surveillance network in history.
We’ve seen similar backdoors on Huawei’s routing products and more recently on DeepSeek’s super low-cost large language model.
And that’s why it’s a matter of national security.
This hyper-acceleration isn’t just a race to build the largest, most successful technology companies in the world. It’s a battle for global dominance and control.
That’s why there is such incredible alignment between the private sector and the government right now. That’s why there is such a push for accelerated innovation.
And that’s why there are so many incredible investment opportunities in front of us, as we look forward in the years ahead.
Jeff
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
