Unitree Robotics humanoids dance to the opening of Asia’s first Embodied Intelligence Experience Store in Shanghai, May 31, 2026.
Jade Gao | AFP | Getty Images
Nvidia The U.S. chipmaker has selected Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree for its first robotic system to be sold to researchers from Stanford University to ETH Zurich, the company announced Monday.
The system combines Unitree’s nearly 6-foot-tall H2 humanoid robot with Nvidia’s Jetson Thor hardware, including the company’s advanced Blackwell GPU for on-device artificial intelligence capabilities.
Nvidia’s humanoid-focused AI model and simulation system, known as Isaac GR00T, is part of a new robot testing package, according to a press release. The robot also uses a mechanical hand made by Singapore-based Sharpa. PitchBook lists Qiming Venture Partners as a backer of the startup.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang predicted that “physical AI” could become a multi-trillion dollar market. He told investors last month that he expects the robotics sector to grow rapidly over the next five years.
“Today, we’re introducing Nvidia Isaac Root, the reference humanoid robot. It’s all fully integrated, it has 25 degrees of freedom in its Sharpa hands, 31 degrees of freedom for the robot, and it’s 6 feet and 150 pounds, just like me,” Huang said Monday during a keynote address in Taipei.
“This platform runs the new Thor, and the entire software stack, data generation stack, data simulation stack, and runtime are all integrated into a robot designed for everyone to use,” he said.
“We built this for researchers in higher education and universities, because it’s very difficult for them to build this.”
The new system also expands Nvidia’s presence in robotics software development and builds on the chipmaker’s advantage in AI computing through its widely used CUDA software platform.
Unitree global market
The news comes as Unitree aims to raise 4.2 billion yuan ($620 million) through a listing on the STAR board in Shanghai. The exchange is scheduled to review the IPO application on Monday.
Unitree revealed that more than 40% of its revenue already comes from markets outside China.
The H2 Plus, an upgraded version of Unitree’s H2 humanoid robot, will be available in October and will be “available to anyone to buy,” said Rev Lebaredian, Nvidia’s vice president of physics AI simulation.
This is a move to “take cutting-edge human research out of the exclusive hands of the world’s biggest tech companies and AI unicorns and make it available to all labs,” he said.
At least four research institutions are already planning to use the H2 Plus humanoid, according to a press release.
These include Seattle-based Ai2, ETH Zurich in Switzerland, the Stanford Robotics Center, and the Institute for Advanced Robotic Control at the University of California, San Diego.
Research departments based in China are not listed.
