How China Trains Your Robot Dog: Catherine Thorbecke

Humanoid robots have been getting a lot of buzz this year. But quadrupeds — the mechanical “dogs” — are emerging as the true proving ground for embodied artificial intelligence.

These four-legged machines have an edge over their upright cousins in stability and agility, making them better suited for real-world deployment. They are the “most advanced general-purpose robots today,” according to a report released last week from Semianalysis. China, not the US, already dominates.

Looking at the most recent publicly available statements, the analysts found that Hangzhou Unitree Technology Co. currently leads the market, capturing some 70% of global sales volume for quadrupeds ...