After the tech frenzy, the second half of humanoid robots is about to compete: whose orders will land first?

After the fervent technology hype, the humanoid robot industry has entered a critical phase of commercial implementation.

According to news from the Chasing Wind Trading Desk, Morgan Stanley's latest research shows that in the second half of 2025, the humanoid robot industry will shift from a phase of technological enthusiasm to a focus on actual commercial implementation, with order acquisition and practical applications becoming the decisive factors driving market sentiment.

The market has already fully priced in technological expectations. The report points out that after a strong 37% increase in the first quarter of 2025, the industry experienced a 6% pullback from March to July due to some integrators lowering their delivery targets and a lack of breakthrough technological progress.

The question investors are most concerned about now is: who can be the first to realize order implementation and validate commercial value. Morgan Stanley expects that with continued government support, humanoid robot orders in China will accelerate in the second half of 2025, while core technologies will also see breakthrough progress.

Market Dynamics Shift: From Technological Frenzy to Commercial Value Validation

In the first quarter of 2025, the humanoid robot value chain experienced a strong surge, with related Chinese stocks rising 37% from January to March, significantly outperforming the MSCI China Index. This was mainly driven by the following factors:

Tech Giants Entering the Field: Technology companies such as Huawei, Nvidia, Google, and Meta have increased their investments in humanoid robots, boosting market confidence in the industry's prospects.

Companies Setting High Goals: Tesla CEO Elon Musk set a target of producing 5,000-10,000 Optimus robots by 2025, while Figure AI announced it would deliver 100,000 units within four years. Chinese companies like Aizhi Robotics and UBTECH ROBOTICS also announced plans to deliver hundreds to thousands of units by 2025.

Technological Breakthroughs: Multiple companies have released visual-language-action (VLA) models, demonstrating significant improvements in robot intelligence levels.

Government Policy Support: For example, Yushu Technology's H1 robot made its debut at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and the government work report mentioned "embodied intelligence" for the first time.

However, from March to July, as the market shifted its focus to actual implementation, related stocks experienced a pullback. The main reasons were:

Companies lowered their production targets for 2025, including Tesla adjusting its Optimus target from "5,000-10,000 units" to "thousands of units."

Technological breakthroughs require time, and currently, robots are mainly applied in structured environments.

The market began to demand actual commercial value to validate the investment logic of this theme.

Commercial Implementation Becomes the Core Focus in the Second Half of 2025

Morgan Stanley believes that the progress of downstream adoption will become the market focus in the second half of the year. Recently, large commercial orders have begun to emerge, such as:

Aizhi Robotics and Yushu Technology secured contracts worth 124 million yuan from China Mobile, receiving 78 million yuan and 46 million yuan, respectively UBTECH ROBOTICS has received a robot order worth 91 million yuan, which will begin delivery in September, primarily for loading/unloading tasks.

Most integrators have set targets to deliver hundreds to thousands of units by 2025, although achieving these targets may be challenging. Aito plans to deliver 6,500 units, Tesla thousands of units, and UBTECH ROBOTICS 1,100-1,300 units. The realization of these orders will be a key indicator of industry progress.

As task data accumulates and intelligence improves, humanoid robot capabilities will expand to more tasks, such as commercial services, catering, and reception. The deployment process will also accelerate, especially for robots performing the same work in different work scenarios, creating a virtuous cycle as scale increases and more training data is accumulated.

Technological Updates Will Drive Industry Development

The report points out that there are several important technology releases and updates to watch for in the second half of 2025:

Tesla Optimus Gen 3: Tesla may reassess the design of Optimus. Musk stated on social media that Optimus 3 is "amazing" and will have agility roughly comparable to that of a human.

Figure 03: Figure AI has completed the design of the next-generation robot Figure 03, which will be a product version designed for affordability and mass production.

Yushu Technology's new low-cost humanoid robot: The outline shows a slender model with 26 degrees of freedom, with a maximum price potentially around $9,000 (approximately 65,000 yuan).

In terms of hardware, major improvements focus on:

Rotary actuators: Testing/adopting new designs such as cycloidal reducers and using PEEK materials to reduce weight;

Linear actuators: Improving screw efficiency through new manufacturing techniques that combine rough processing/cold rolling and precision grinding;

Visual-language-behavior model innovation: VTLA architecture (visual-tactile-language-behavior model) or different additional modules.

Important events in the coming months include:

Tesla's Q2 2025 earnings call (July 23);

World Artificial Intelligence Conference (July 26-28);

World Robot Conference (August 8-12);

Tesla Optimus Gen 3 model and production updates;

Activities of tech giants (such as Mag 7, Huawei, Xiaomi) and possible humanoid robot updates;

IPOs of humanoid robot startups.

Morgan Stanley has updated the list of China's humanoid robot industry chain, including 45 stocks, covering brains (3), body components (31), and integrators (11). As the industry enters the second half of the competition, who can first realize order fulfillment and validate commercial value will become the key factor determining market performance. Investors should closely monitor the business progress and technological innovations of major companies.