Unitree’s Wang Xingxing now puts the humanoid ‘aha’ moment at 2028, and is building AI to train the robots

Unitree founder Wang Xingxing unveiled Unitree Rehearsal, a system meant to let AI propose, code and test improvements to the company’s humanoid robots, at Unitree’s 2026 World Physical AI Conference in Hangzhou on October 22, the South China Morning Post reported. In an interview reported by Bloomberg on October 23, Wang said humanoids could complete 80% of voice-commanded tasks, in factories and homes, as soon as 2028.

Why it matters: the date is earlier than Wang’s own. At the World Robot Conference in Beijing in August he said a major software leap could come in two to three years in an optimistic case, and five to ten years in a less favourable one.

What is Unitree Rehearsal?

A planned feedback loop for robot development. According to the SCMP, AI would search research papers, write code and test it in simulation before trials on physical robots, with humans still able to assess performance and give feedback. Wang described the aim as an automated cycle that could greatly speed up the development of robotics algorithms, replacing labour-intensive manual programming. Bloomberg reported that Unitree already uses AI this way, feeding results from physical tests back into its models.

Unitree has not published a paper, a benchmark or a release date for Rehearsal. The loop also has a step that software-only labs do not: the physical trial. Simulation runs can be parallelised cheaply; robot tests cannot, which is why the sim-to-real gap will set how fast such a loop can turn.

Why did Wang bring his timeline forward?

Model progress, by his account. Bloomberg reported that Wang cited advances in frontier models, including OpenAI’s GPT-6, said he had been sceptical of AI model developers last year, and now believes frontier models will “undoubtedly surpass humans in many areas” given enough data and time. He said Unitree humanoids running GPT-6 can paint, including changing colours and rinsing the palette, and play Go.

He was also blunt about the present. “If you take a humanoid home now and ask it to clean the room, honestly I don’t think it can complete that task,” he told Bloomberg. Bloomberg noted that humanoids still sell mainly to researchers and enthusiasts. Unitree makes tens of thousands of robots a year, according to Bloomberg, and is building its own models while working with AI labs in China and abroad.

What did the H2-X video show?

On October 21 Unitree released a one-minute video of the H2-X “Kung Fu Legend Guardian”, a variant of its 1.8-metre H2. It shows the robot leaping from a four-metre platform, fighting off an intruder armed with a stick and lifting the front of a car off a trapped dummy; the rescue scenes use props, Interesting Engineering noted. Unitree claims about eight hours of endurance against roughly three for the standard H2, though the on-screen caption refers to standing time. How much of the behaviour is autonomous is not stated. No price or release date was given; the H2 lists at $29,900.

The two announcements point in different directions. The H2-X markets the body. Wang’s own account says the limiting factor is the brain, and Rehearsal is his bet on fixing it faster.