Unitree’s new robot is like a giant Transformer come to life (opens in new tab)

On May 12, Unitree Robotics founder Wang Xingxing climbed into the chest cavity of a 9.8-foot-tall metal robot, walked around, and destroyed a concrete brick wall. One punch. Wall gone. The Chinese media reaction was instant: “Unitree really built a ‘Gundam’!” That was a wild exaggeration, but there’s a kernel of truth to it. The GD01 feels like the first version of something much bigger. Not in size, but in scope. China is waging a full-spectrum push into embodied AI—“digital brains” with ph...