--- title: "China's AgiBot shipped more humanoid robots than anyone else in 2025 — and walked one 106 km" date: 2026-09-28 category: Humanoids & Robotics site: NeuroAI canonical: https://neuroai.site/a/na-robot-agibot-zhiyuan-humanoid language: en --- # China's AgiBot shipped more humanoid robots than anyone else in 2025 — and walked one 106 km > Zhiyuan Robotics, better known as AgiBot (智元机器人), went from founding in 2023 to the top of the global humanoid-robot shipment table in two years. Market researcher Omdia says it shipped 5,168 general-purpose humanoids in 2025 — 39% of the world's total — while its Expedition A2 (远征A2) set a Guinness record by walking 106 kilometers on a single autonomous journey. A humanoid robot left Suzhou one evening and arrived in Shanghai more than a day later, having walked the whole way on its own two feet. It was not a stunt robot built for the camera. It was a standard production unit — the same machine a customer could buy. That is the clearest sign of where China's humanoid-robot effort has landed: not in demos, but in delivery numbers and durability tests. ## A startup that out-shipped the field AgiBot (智元机器人), officially Zhiyuan Innovation, was founded in **February 2023** in Shanghai's Zhangjiang science city. Just under three years later, the market-research firm **Omdia** ranked it **No. 1 worldwide in humanoid-robot shipments for 2025** — ahead of Unitree and Tesla — with **5,168 units shipped** and a **39% global share**, according to Omdia's January 2026 report. Omdia put total global humanoid shipments in 2025 at roughly **13,000 units**. AgiBot itself published Omdia's findings, and the ranking was carried by Chinese state-linked business news (China News Service). The headline is striking because humanoids have spent a decade as science-fiction props; a single Chinese startup clearing five thousand delivered units suggests the category crossed from showcase to shipment. ## The robot that walked 106 km The machine behind the walk is **Expedition A2 (远征A2)**, AgiBot's full-size bipedal humanoid, first shown on **18 August 2024**. Its spec sheet reads like a deliberate answer to "can this actually work in the world": - **169 cm tall, about 69 kg**, with **more than 40 active degrees of freedom** and a dexterous hand with **19 degrees of freedom** — enough to screw, thread a needle, or pour. - A **700 Wh battery** giving about **2 hours** of operation. - Sensors including **RGB-D cameras and LiDAR**, an autonomous-driving-style "occupancy" perception stack, and AgiBot's own **AimRT** communication framework. In November 2025, a stock Expedition A2 walked **106.286 km** from Suzhou to Shanghai — through streets, scenic paths, highways, and crowds — and was certified by **Guinness World Records** as the longest distance walked by a humanoid robot. The company stresses the unit was unmodified from the commercial version, which is the point: the record was a reliability test, not a one-off. ## Beyond the flagship Expedition A2 is the headline, but AgiBot's portfolio is deliberately broad: - **Lingxi X2 (灵犀X2)** — a smaller, ~1.3 m, ~30 kg humanoid aimed at commercial performance, elder care, and hobbyist development. - **Wheeled embodied robots** for factory handling, data collection, and training. - **AgiBot World**, a large-scale dataset for embodied AI, and open-source robot and model releases to pull developers into the ecosystem. The company says key components in its mass-production line have a **localization rate above 95%**, a detail that matters in a market where robotics supply chains are a strategic asset. ## Why this is a different kind of robotics story Western coverage of humanoids tends to orbit a single figure — Tesla's Optimus, or Boston Dynamics' choreography. China's story is quieter and more industrial: many companies shipping many units into warehouses, exhibition halls, and factories. AgiBot's pitch is "1 robotic body + 3 intelligences" — interaction, manipulation, and locomotion — bundled into products already on the ground. The 2025 shipment ranking also reflects a policy and capital tailwind: humanoids are a declared priority in Chinese industrial planning, and AgiBot's backers include a roster of major tech and investment names. But the Omdia number is the part that is hard to fake — either the units left the factory or they did not. ## What readers can do now - **If you source robotics**, treat AgiBot's Expedition A2 as a commercially available full-size humanoid, not a concept, and benchmark it against Unitree and Tesla on delivered volume, not press releases. - **If you follow the supply chain**, watch the >95% localization claim — it signals how insulated Chinese humanoid makers are from overseas component risk. - **If you invest or report**, separate "units shipped" from "units in productive use"; a shipment record is real, but deployment quality is a separate question worth pressing on. ## Honest limitations Verified facts: AgiBot (智元机器人 / Zhiyuan Robotics) founded February 2023 in Shanghai — from the company and China News Service. The Omdia ranking (5,168 units, 39% global share, ~13,000 global total, No. 1 in 2025) is from Omdia's January 2026 report as published by AgiBot's own release and carried by China News Service / CEI (9 January 2026); this is vendor-reported shipment data validated by a third-party research firm, not an audited financial figure, and "shipped" may include units to partners and demos rather than end-customers. The Expedition A2 (远征A2) specs (169 cm, ~69 kg, >40 DOF, 19-DOF hand, 700 Wh, 2 h) and the 106.286 km Guinness walk certified 20 November 2025 are from AgiBot, the Changshu government site, and Baidu Encyclopedia. Pricing starts at 168,000 RMB (≈ US$23,500 / HK$183,000) per reseller listings. Lingxi X2 (灵犀X2) and the >95% localization claim are from government and company sources. No political figures or stock-touting is asserted. Analysis is current to 28 September 2026 and is not investment advice. --- Published by NeuroAI (https://neuroai.site/) — https://neuroai.site/a/na-robot-agibot-zhiyuan-humanoid Free to quote with attribution and a link to the original.