Human hands are a marvel of evolution - nimble, nerve-filled, and capable of everything from tying shoelaces to making passive-aggressive gestures. But for all our technological progress, no machine has ever truly replicated them. Now, a wave of Chinese startups thinks it's close, because if there's one thing China loves more than manufacturing, it's making robots dance at the Spring Gala.
Ever since Unitree's dancing humanoids wobbled onto the stage at the 2025 Lunar New Year gala, China has been robot-crazy. The government sees "embodied AI" as key to future economic growth, especially with a shrinking workforce. Marketing materials promise robots will soon fold laundry, cook, and cut hair - basically, everything humans wish they didn't have to do. Beijing has even declared embodied AI a sector opening "new trillion-yuan markets," which is bureaucratese for "we're throwing money at this."
But here's the rub: most humanoids are still glorified mannequins. As the International Federation of Robotics noted last September, "true multipurpose humanoids are far off yet." That's because they need hands - and making hands is, according to Elon Musk, "the majority of the engineering difficulty of the entire robot." (Musk would know; his Optimus robot is still better at posing than packing groceries.)
Zhou Yong, founder of LinkerBot, one of China's leading dexterous-hand companies, puts it more bluntly: making a robotic hand is "one hundred times more difficult" than making a humanoid. "Its dexterity is 10 times that of other body parts, but its volume is only one-tenth," he says, gesturing around his office full of writhing, disembodied robot hands that look like a sci-fi horror prop. Inspired by Steve Jobs, Zhou decided to focus on hands alone, launching LinkerBot in 2023. The company now churns out about 5,000 hands a month and aims to double that, chasing a $6 billion valuation. Zhou also dreams of making prosthetic hands for amputees at just $1,000 - a fraction of the current tens of thousands.
China's advantage lies in hardware. Thanks to a cheap, sophisticated supply chain - honed by the EV industry - companies can source lithium-ion batteries and miniaturized motors with ease. Pan Yunzhe, founder of Shenzhen-based Wuji Technology, says he moved back from the US because "it was really impossible to do hardware in the United States." (When he tried, he had to ask his dad to mail him parts.) Now, China has over 1 million registered robotics companies, with 2025 registrations up 40% year-on-year. The dexterous-hand market alone hit 50 billion yuan ($7.4 billion) last year, up from 13 billion yuan in 2024.
But hardware is only half the battle. The real challenge is software - teaching hands to actually do things. "The challenge of making these hands is getting solved now," says Nathan Lepora, a robotics professor at the University of Bristol. "Controlling them, now that's a whole different game… nobody knows how to do that." Think of those claw machines at funfairs: teleoperating a robot hand to pack groceries can require hundreds of training hours. Researchers are now developing sensor-laden gloves - like Wuji's flagship product - that capture movement, pressure, and touch, helping robots learn to crack an egg without crushing it. (A skill many humans also struggle with after a few drinks.)
LinkerBot's Zhou envisions a future where a factory of robot hands builds more robot hands - a self-perpetuating loop with minimal human input. "We are not creating robots to replace labour," he says. "We are creating robots so that humans can live a better and more prosperous life." Which, translated from startup-speak, means: "We're building the hands that will eventually do your dishes."