The Felix View

The robot IPO that forgot gravity.

Unitree, the Chinese humanoid robot maker known for backflips, dancing machines and now a robot called "Superman", raised RMB 6.1 billion in Shanghai in an IPO reportedly oversubscribed more than 8,000 times by retail investors. On debut, the stock surged as much as 629%. There is a reason the enthusiasm is building now. Beijing hosted the second World Humanoid Robot Games, a showcase built around exactly the sort of spectacle that makes a young industry feel inevitable: robots running, dancing, competing and performing practical tasks. China increasingly looks like the place trying to industrialise humanoid robots. The United States still …