China’s early investment in humanoid robotics will help drive the next phase of its global manufacturing dominance, according to new research from Morgan Stanley. Economists led by Chetan Ahya, the bank’s chief Asia economist, project China’s share of global manufacturing will expand from 15% today to 16.5% by 2030, powered by humanoid robot deployment across its industrial base.

The report draws an explicit parallel with China’s EV strategy. A decade ago, China identified electric vehicles as a strategic growth driver and invested ahead of the curve in manufacturing capacity, battery technology, and supply chain control – a playbook that produced the world’s dominant EV and battery industries. Morgan Stanley’s economists argue that humanoid robotics has followed the same path.

Supply Chain as the Structural Advantage

China’s edge in humanoid robotics is not primarily a matter of individual robot performance but of supply chain depth. The country is building capacity across the full humanoid supply chain – from harmonic reducers and joint motors to sensors, actuators, and AI chips – giving it cost and scale advantages that competitors including the U.S., Japan, and South Korea cannot easily replicate in the near term, as those countries often rely on Chinese-manufactured components.

Government procurement is accelerating domestic adoption, creating a high-volume testing ground that is simultaneously a market and a development environment. Chinese tech parks, factories, and universities are among the most active humanoid deployment sites in the world, generating the operational data that improves AI systems faster than lab-based development allows.

“China has a track record of spotting the next big growth areas early and planning ahead,” Ahya wrote. “The robotics industry has followed a similar path.”

U.S. vs China: Different Approaches

The Morgan Stanley report contrasts the two countries’ strategic approaches. American firms, including Tesla, have focused on high-specification prototypes with an emphasis on testing and validation before scaling production. Chinese manufacturers have moved faster to deploy models at scale, using the domestic market as a live proving ground. The speed-versus-rigor tradeoff reflects different risk tolerances and capital structures – U.S. companies are more exposed to liability and regulatory scrutiny in production environments, while Chinese firms benefit from state support that absorbs some of the commercial risk of early deployment.

Protectionism as a Constraint

The report identifies trade restrictions as a meaningful risk to China’s humanoid export ambitions. Chinese EVs have encountered tariffs and market access barriers across the U.S., Europe, and other regions, and similar dynamics could emerge in robotics as the technology matures and strategic dependence concerns rise. However, the economists note that humanoid robotics is a newer industry with less existing domestic production to protect in importing countries, meaning the protectionist impulse may be slower to develop than it was with EVs.

The scale of the market at stake is significant. Morgan Stanley has separately projected the global humanoid robot market could reach $5 trillion by 2050. Whether China captures a dominant share of that market – or faces the same trade friction that has constrained its EV exports – will depend on how quickly other governments identify robotics as a strategic sector requiring protection.

Chinese robotics company Agibot deployed its A2 humanoid robot at The Mark Hotel in New York on May 5, ahead of the 2026 Met Gala, in a collaboration with fashion designer Alexander Wang. The appearance marked the first time an embodied AI robot has attended a Met Gala pre-event, drawing significant attention from media, photographers, and bystanders gathered outside the hotel – a traditional staging ground for celebrity arrivals before the evening’s main event.

The A2 robot posed for photographers, changed posture on request, held items, and served drinks to guests – a set of tasks that demonstrated real-world manipulation and crowd navigation capability in one of the more operationally unpredictable environments a humanoid robot has been deployed in publicly. At one point the robot became briefly stuck exiting an elevator and required assistance from handlers before continuing. The moment was captured on video and circulated widely on social media alongside footage of the robot’s red carpet posing.

A2’s Operational Profile

The A2 is Agibot’s full-size humanoid platform, built with human-like proportions and bipedal locomotion designed for stability in crowded, uncontrolled environments. Its perception and decision-making systems allowed it to navigate the dense scene outside The Mark – cameras, crowds, and continuous movement – without significant incident beyond the elevator delay. The drink-serving and object-handling tasks performed during the event reflect the same dexterous manipulation capabilities Agibot has been demonstrating in its industrial deployments at Longcheer Technology’s electronics manufacturing facility.

Technology Meets Fashion

The collaboration with Alexander Wang aligned with the Met Gala’s 2026 theme of “Fashion is Art”. For Agibot, the appearance served a dual purpose: demonstrating the A2’s capability in a chaotic, high-visibility public environment, and positioning embodied AI as a presence in cultural spaces beyond its established industrial context.

The Met Gala deployment is the latest in a series of public-facing appearances by Chinese humanoid robots – from the Beijing half-marathon to the Spring Festival gala – that serve as demonstration platforms in front of large audiences. The A2’s appearance at one of the most globally watched fashion events of the year extends that pattern into Western cultural territory, with the added dimension of a commercial fashion partnership providing the access and framing.

Agibot has previously stated its ambition to expand embodied AI deployment from manufacturing and logistics into service and consumer environments. The Met Gala appearance, whatever its promotional character, put the A2 in a setting that tested navigation, interaction, and object handling in conditions no factory floor replicates.

Boston Dynamics released a video on May 6 showing its production-ready Atlas humanoid robot performing a handstand and transitioning into an L-sit – a static hold in which the robot supports its full body weight on its hands alone. The footage marks the first live demonstration of the mass-produced version of Atlas in motion, a distinction that separates it from earlier research prototype demonstrations of backflips and parkour.

The release comes as Hyundai, which acquired Boston Dynamics in 2021, faces mounting pressure to deliver humanoid robots at industrial scale. Hyundai shares closed 2% higher in Seoul on May 6 and are up more than 85% in 2026, driven in part by the Atlas iteration unveiled at CES in January.

Hardware Specifications

The production-ready Atlas features human-scale hands with tactile sensing and fully rotational joints. It can lift up to 50 kilograms and operate across a temperature range of minus 20 to 40 degrees Celsius – a thermal envelope designed to cover the conditions found in automotive manufacturing environments. The fully rotational joints allow the robot to achieve positions beyond the limits of human skeletal anatomy, which is what enables the handstand and L-sit movements demonstrated in the video.

The maneuver is not presented as a commercial use case but as a demonstration of balance precision and joint control – capabilities that translate directly into the stability and repeatability required for complex industrial assembly tasks.

Commercial Deployment Timeline

Hyundai plans to deploy Atlas at its manufacturing plants beginning in 2028, including at its facility in the U.S. state of Georgia. The company has invested billions of dollars into its robotics business, and the commercialization of Atlas is central to Hyundai’s broader repositioning as a mobility solutions provider amid tariff pressure and intensifying competition from Chinese automakers.

Yoo Jiwoong, an analyst at DAOL Investment and Securities, described the video as the clearest evidence yet that Hyundai is approaching commercial scale for humanoid production. Boston Dynamics is currently producing approximately four Atlas robots per month, a figure that remains well below the 30,000-unit annual capacity it announced at CES – a gap that reflects the engineering and manufacturing challenges of the transition from research hardware to production volume.

Boston Dynamics acknowledged the difficulty of that transition in a post on X: “Balancing commercial goals and robotics research can be tricky, but with Atlas we’re making it work.”

Competitive Context

The humanoid robot market that Hyundai and Boston Dynamics are entering is increasingly competitive. Chinese manufacturers currently lead in production volume and deployment scale, with companies including Agibot, Unitree, and UBTECH shipping thousands of units annually. Tesla’s Optimus program is targeting volume production from July 2026. For Boston Dynamics, which built its reputation on research robotics, the transition to commercial manufacturing at automotive scale represents a fundamental operational shift – one the May 6 video is designed, at least in part, to signal is underway.