Wang Xingxing - 9x CEO behind humanoid robot company Unitree

Earlier this week, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, President Xi Jinping met with the heads of China's top private companies, including Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei, BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu, New Hope Chairman Liu Yonghao, Will Semiconductor Chairman Yu Renrong, and Xiaomi Chairman Lei Jun.

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Wang Xingxing's position during a meeting with Chinese tech leaders with President Xi Jinping. Photo: CCTV

Wang Xingxing is among this "elite group" despite his young age. The founder and CEO of humanoid robot company Unitree Robotics was seated on the same level as representatives of Huawei and BYD, in the center and opposite Mr. Xi.

Speaking after a press conference on February 17, Xingxing emphasized the importance of robots, predicting that the development of AI-powered humanoid robots will reach a new height by the end of this year. "AI-powered robots are developing very fast, faster than I expected, giving me big surprises every day," Xingxing said. "We need to have AI models that are suitable for robots. Once they are suitable, just train them with better computing power, it will significantly promote technological progress in the field."

In everyday life, Xingxing appears as a typical tech CEO: black shirt, jeans and sneakers.

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Wang Xingxing at a Unitree event. Photo: Unitree Robotics

"The inventor failed all the exams"

Wang Xingxing was born in 1990 into an ordinary family in Ningbo, Zhejiang. Unlike many academically gifted tech founders, he was once described as "growing up in failure all the way".

Sharing with Yicai in August 2024, Xingxing said that he always got bad grades in English and never got good grades in important exams in this subject. In the eyes of his teachers, the boy could not remember words, often complaining to his parents that he was a "stupid child". In other subjects, he described himself: "I was average. My grades were either top or second from the bottom."

But such a "silly kid" found his own world. Since childhood, Xingxing had a talent for practicality, and loved to create things he wanted. Without much pocket money, he invented many toys by collecting scrap, from model airplanes, rechargeable batteries to turbine engines. Once, because he was so engrossed in his experiments, he almost got poisoned.

"When I was in elementary school, I built a small wind-powered car. During my three years in middle school, I mainly focused on researching micro-jet engines. I also built rechargeable batteries and did many other chemical experiments. Once, I electrolyzed water. Electrolysis produced chlorine gas, but I put it on the first floor and forgot to turn it off. When I woke up the next day, the entire downstairs smelled of chlorine, almost poisoning the whole family," he told Yicai.

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A robot Xingxing made from scrap when he was a child. Photo: Yicai

Although he loves to be creative, Xingxing said he felt bored at school and had no significant achievements. However, he wanted to become an entrepreneur in the technology field.

After an unimpressive academic period, Xingxing still applied to and was accepted into Zhejiang University of Science and Technology. Since entering the school, he has mainly been going to workshops to practice building robots.

According to Xingxing, when he entered university, he had no money, no resources, no support, and not even the tools to serve his passion other than a hand drill. Because he lacked a grinder, he rubbed the details on the ground by hand, causing blisters and roughness on his hands.

"I often joke that I am extremely stingy, because it only takes 200 yuan (700,000 VND) to create a robot. In my eyes, the price of a robot is no different from the price of an electric fan," he said.

From then on, Xingxing truly discovered his talent. He continued to pursue the direction he felt he was best at and became more and more confident.

After graduating from Zhejiang University, Xingxing applied to Shanghai University to study mechanical engineering as a graduate student. He believed that small, electric, and highly flexible quadrupedal robots were the direction of development in the future. Therefore, he began researching them in his master's program and has been involved with quadrupedal robots ever since.

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Wang Xingxing and robot XDog. Photo: CCTV

In 2015, before graduating with a master's degree, Xingxing participated in robot design competitions. At that time, the XDog robot model he developed from scrap, model airplane engines, and self-made parts won second prize worth 80,000 yuan (280 million VND). More importantly, this robot was the premise for him to become a pioneer in high-performance, low-cost four-legged robot solutions at that time.

'In fact, most innovations in society are combinations,' Xingxing said. 'By combining the latest ideas and technologies from different industries and making sure they are at the forefront, you can really become the best in the world.'

In 2016, Xingxing graduated with a master's degree. He then met with some investors, but thought the market was not mature enough, so he "buried the seed of entrepreneurship deep in his heart." He then joined DJI, the world's leading manufacturer of civilian drones, as an engineer.

During this time, the four-legged robot XDog suddenly received attention again, making Xingxing famous in the media, technology and social networks, as well as being targeted by large companies. On one hand, some people wanted to buy it, on the other hand, some wanted to invest. But instead of selling, he left DJI and officially founded Yushu Technology in August 2016, with the international name Unitree Robotics. That year, he was 26 years old.

Breakthrough development

In the early years, Unitree Robotics was mainly an in-house research operation. But a few years later, the company became widely known, becoming the first in the world to commercialize a high-performance quadruped robot.

In 2021, Unitree released the Unitree Go1, a four-legged robot similar to Boston Dynamics' Spot. Equipped with twelve motors, each generating a maximum torque of 23.7 Nm, the robot can rotate at 280 rpm, moving on a variety of surfaces including sand, rock and dirt. According to the WSJ's assessment at the time, the robot dog "is a great achievement of Chinese technology".

During this period, Unitree was called 'the Chinese version of Boston Dynamics.' However, Xingxing said he never considered the American company a competitor. 'In 2013-2015, when I was researching XDog, they had just announced their electric drive solution. We also commercialized the four-legged robot before them,' he said. 'You can think of us as Boston Dynamics, but we follow our own path.'

After 2021, Unitree is also researching humanoid robots. In 2023, the company will introduce the H1 model and then the upgraded G1 in 2024, which can be mass produced for about $16,000.

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Unitree's robot generations as of 2023. Photo: Unitree/ Universeailtd

The company's robots have also been making more appearances at major events like CES 2024, Nvidia's GTC AI Conference, the World Robot Conference in Beijing, as well as cultural and sporting events like the Olympics. At this year's Spring Festival, robots equipped with Unitree's advanced speech recognition technology and emotional AI performed a folk dance alongside human dancers. The company said the event marked 'the world's first large-scale, fully automated AI humanoid robot performance.'

Speaking about his story, Xingxing believes that his previous experience of poverty was partly a good thing for him to have the current results. "In relatively limited circumstances, self-motivation will allow you to think clearly about what you really want to do, then divide it into small parts, do well every day and do it to the end. In the end, this world will not disappoint those who make efforts," he said.

Xingxing is optimistic about the future. He predicts that AI will bring huge changes to human life in the next 3-5 years. "Gen Z tech entrepreneurs like me are very lucky to catch up with the explosive development of AI, new technologies also bring many new opportunities," he said. "Each technology can eventually be built into a technology tree in the universe, truly bringing light to human life."

Samuel Daniel

Update 20 February 2025