BEIJING, April 21 (Xinhua) -- A 26-year-old graduate from a non-elite university founded what is now one of China's most valuable robotics firms. His story is the stuff of legend, but he is not alone. In China's new wave of innovation, this narrative is playing out at breakneck speed.
Ten years ago, Wang Xingxing made a decision that seemed, to many of his peers, baffling. Having just landed a coveted position at DJI, a leader at the global forefront of drone manufacturing, he attracted international attention with his master's thesis project, a quadruped robot, prompting a pivotal career shift.
He quit his job and founded a startup called Unitree, pitching to investors with robotic dogs that trembled with every step. Today, his humanoid robots are stunning the world with their exquisite martial arts performances at national galas.
In the midst of a tech revolution that is redrawing the map of the world's manufacturing powerhouse, a growing cohort of tech-savvy, capital-literate innovators in their 30s, like Wang, are scripting their own saga of wealth in China.
When the company was at its most desperate, "there was only about 100,000 yuan (roughly 14,640 U.S. dollars) left in the account," Wang recalled when reflecting on his early startup days. At that time, China's e-commerce sector was at its zenith, while hardware devices like robots were regarded merely as geek curiosities, scarcely associated with viable commercial opportunities.
"Back then, I couldn't even afford a 3D printer, so I had to DIY many of the components," Wang told Xinhua in an interview.
The rise of Unitree signifies a shift in China's economic landscape, embodying the essence of "new quality productive forces," a paradigm that harnesses cutting-edge tech innovation to revolutionize manufacturing efficiency and spawn novel, high-value and high-growth industries. These sectors include embodied AI, brain-computer interfaces, bio-manufacturing, hydrogen and nuclear fusion power, 6G and quantum technology, designated as new drivers of economic growth in China's new five-year blueprint.
Among the generation of "new quality" Chinese innovators are Liang Wenfeng, who ignited the "DeepSeek moment," Yang Zhilin, maker of the AI star model Kimi, Liu Jingkang, who turned panoramic cameras into a consumer electronics hit in America and Peng Zhihui, founder of AgiBot, a competitor to Unitree.
Last month's Hurun Global Rich List 2026 revealed that China has reclaimed the top spot globally with 1,110 billionaires, including a notable host of young wealth creators from the internet, AI and emerging consumer sectors.
"I'm on the older side here," Wang noted, highlighting the youth-dominated culture at Unitree. "In AI and tech, young people are the primary drivers." As the world's top manufacturing nation, China has nurtured a large number of engineers with strong STEM backgrounds, and they form the manpower backbone of China's innovation engine.
Unitree is not the sole pioneer in China's robotics landscape. Tsinghua University, one of the nation's most prestigious institutions, has nurtured many young robotics entrepreneurs responsible for standout firms, including Galbot, Robotera, Galaxea AI, Noetix Robotics and Booster Robotics. These companies have all become stars in the venture capital world. Unitree's top rival, Deep Robotics, emerged from Zhejiang University, another major robotics incubator in Hangzhou, the same city where Unitree is headquartered.
Rapid fundraising and quick riches, however, are not the whole story. A strong techno-idealistic entrepreneurial spirit is a defining trait of this innovative generation.
"AI is not just about how I find market positioning for the next year or two, but how it will transform the world over the next ten to twenty years," said Yang, whose team created Kimi.
In 2023, Yang rented two floors of office space in Beijing's Zhongguancun, China's Silicon Valley. At the entrance sat a white digital piano with sheet music displayed, while behind the computers, young faces filled the room. Then, the tech firm had not even formally hung its sign: Moonshot AI.
Later, the startup released Kimi, a large language model that would take the world by storm. Kimi K2.5 was recently adopted as the foundational AI engine by Cursor, a U.S.-based AI coding platform.
When asked about Unitree's ultimate goal for their robots, Wang bit his lip and pondered for a moment before saying: "Something like AGI, a general-purpose robot that can handle pretty much any task. That would make my life truly worthwhile."
In China's economic planning, smartly upgrading its vast manufacturing base is a top priority. The country's unique edge comes from having both the "hammer" (emerging technologies) and the "nail" (real-world applications). This synergy is especially evident in southern hubs like Shenzhen in Guangdong Province, where strong manufacturing supply powers the journey from tech to market.
At just 34, Insta360 founder Liu Jingkang turned panoramic cameras into an overnight U.S. sensation, drawing customers to line up at dawn for the latest release, shattering the old stereotype of Chinese manufacturing as being cheap and cutthroat. This owes largely to Shenzhen's end-to-end consumer electronics supply chain.
"This kind of hardware innovation speed probably wouldn't happen if we weren't in Shenzhen," said Liu.
While China's booming tech sector has rolled out the red carpet for ambitious, well-educated youth, their battlefield is a hyper-competitive one. Reflecting on the early days of the robotic dog market, Wang noted that many peers failed due to operational missteps and poor product-market fit, while success demands a more comprehensive skill set.
Wang recalled that as a child, one question he loved pondering was: "How money is created, how it circulates and how it turns back into things?" He added that he found this question "quite fascinating."
Li Zhaoqian, former president of the China Society for the Study of the Private-Sector Economy, has dubbed these young Chinese entrepreneurs who understand technology, capital, markets and finance as "strategic entrepreneurs."
"Cultivating strategic emerging and future-oriented industries demands visionary entrepreneurs who can orchestrate diverse talent and integrate a wide spectrum of resources," Li explained. ■
