China’s Regulator Reportedly Adds Three Criteria for Humanoid-Robot IPOs

China’s humanoid-robot IPO pipeline may produce few public companies. Sources familiar with the China Securities Regulatory Commission’s thinking told CNBC that the regulator is applying new, informal tests to applicants. The sources expect only a handful of startups, or possibly none, to reach public markets. That is their forecast, not a count of rejected applications.

The reported tests matter beyond mainland IPOs. Mainland Chinese companies also need the commission’s approval to list in Hong Kong, making the guidance relevant to startups seeking public capital there.

The three reported tests

Three anonymous sources familiar with the regulator’s thinking described the criteria to CNBC. They called the approach “window guidance”—informal direction to applicants, rather than a formal rule announcement.

• Revenue and orders: Applicants should have sustainable revenue and commercial orders.
• Narrowing losses: Losses must shrink, with one source saying a three-year forecast is needed. The reported test does not require applicants to be profitable already.
• Core technology: The company must possess core technology, such as robotic brains or hands.

The criteria cover different parts of a business: customer demand, the direction of financial losses and ownership of important technology. A company’s technical capabilities would not, by themselves, satisfy the revenue or loss tests. Nor would commercial orders alone answer whether it possesses the required technology.

Hong Kong began allowing technology companies to file confidentially for IPOs in May 2025. That route lets companies submit applications without making them public. The reported queue therefore should not be read as a list of companies whose offering plans and financial details are all publicly available.

Capital surged before the commercial test

The scrutiny follows a sharp rise in funding. Investment in the sector reached 47.09 billion yuan ($6.95 billion) in the second quarter, according to industry data provider Xiniu. That was more than double the first-quarter total and over six times the amount invested a year earlier.

China has well over 100 humanoid companies, backed by a mix of government and private-sector money. They sit within the national push for “embodied AI,” artificial intelligence operating through physical machines. The term appeared in the last two annual government work reports, even as authorities warned of a humanoid-industry bubble.

Unitree’s August listing sharpened the commercialization debate. The robot maker received a regulatory fast-track to its Shanghai IPO on August 19. A day later, founder Wang Xingxing cautioned in a keynote that commercialization beyond dancing robots remained years away. His warning put a longer business timetable beside an immediate opportunity to raise public money.

Unitree raised about 6.1 billion yuan ($905 million), and its shares climbed more than 460% on debut, closing at 845 yuan. By Monday, September 28, they were trading at 459.65 yuan—nearly half that closing price. The reversal provides a concrete backdrop to the tougher scrutiny of startups’ fast-growing valuations.

An older public company shows the financial challenge from another angle. Hong Kong-listed Ubtech, which went public in December 2023, reported a first-half operating loss of 279 million yuan this year. Its shares had fallen more than 40% in 2026. Public-market access has not meant that this robot maker has stopped losing money.

A threshold still in question

One source said applicants might need to meet only two of the three criteria. That would leave room for a company to fall short on one test, but it remains unclear which applicants could qualify even under that possible threshold.

The Hong Kong stock exchange and the commission did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.