Robot companies are advancing toward mass production, but a complete supply chain has yet to be developed.

Robots are facing real-world scrutiny.

Recently, Wang Hao, a manager at a robotics firm, told the press that the dexterous hands from Yinshi Robot, which his company uses, broke after gripping 5-kilogram items about 50 times. Yinshi is one of the leading dexterous hand suppliers. This situation highlights the reliability issues of core components as robots are deployed.

Robot companies are gradually moving toward mass production, but they haven't cultivated a mature supply chain, and core components haven't been thoroughly tested. The bottleneck of hardware lifespan is a pressing issue that needs to be solved immediately.

Dexterous Hands Prone to Failure

Wang Hao's company has already shipped its robots to partners. These robots are being trialed in automotive assembly plants and for material handling tasks in garment factories. In warehouse logistics, manually moving boxes is a physically demanding job. "We hope robots can replace humans in these heavy, dangerous tasks."

The year 2026 is critical for Chinese companies to push humanoid robots into actual industrial settings. Before this, robots can serve as research subjects in universities, perform on stage, or act as guides in stores and museums. But factory work environments and requirements are far more stringent than these previous use cases.

Tasks like loading and unloading materials in assembly plants test a robot's dexterous hand capabilities. Most human work is done with hands—whether using chopsticks, typing on a keyboard, or holding a child. Similarly, for humanoid robots to play a significant role in the economy, they need a pair of dexterous and durable hands.

Robot companies typically don't produce all core components themselves. For dexterous hands, Wang Hao's company has adopted a dual approach: developing its own five-finger and four-finger hands while also considering external suppliers. They purchased some hands from Yinshi Robot, a company founded a decade ago.

In Wang Hao's view, current dexterous hands are not satisfactory. In warehouse logistics, after handling items weighing about 5 kilograms roughly 50 times, some hands broke. However, considering the price is under 10,000 yuan per pair, he considers this "low-cost and somewhat excusable."

In industrial settings, a dexterous hand must withstand tens of thousands of uses without breaking to pass the quality benchmark. Factory lines move fast; a malfunction could delay production. Once a hand enters a factory, "you can't just go in and replace it every time. That's not viable in an industrial environment."

A representative from Yinshi Robot revealed that the company shipped over 10,000 dexterous hands last year to about 700 clients. "Under load testing, we can reach up to one million cycles." The representative considered Wang Hao's case an extreme outlier "without much representativeness."

This representative stated that the company's hands are continuously improving. For example, some models previously used hard plastic exteriors, as they weren't typically subjected to strong impacts in research settings. Later, to meet higher mechanical rigidity requirements when paired with robots, some models were switched to all-metal construction.

Management at Geek+ also believes that, overall, the lifespan of dexterous hands on the market needs improvement. "In warehouses, robots grip items very frequently—up to 8,000 to 10,000 times daily. Currently, leading hand suppliers' products have a lifespan of only 300,000 to 500,000 cycles, and these aren't even high-degree-of-freedom hands. They might break after about a month of use," said Dong Qipeng, Head of Embodied AI R&D at Geek+.

Dong Qipeng noted that robot companies will face reliability and lifespan issues when deploying in real-world scenarios. Current humanoid robots have similar forms that are largely converging, but the end effectors they use vary significantly.

The Supply Chain is Being Nurtured

Dexterous hands currently struggle to balance dexterity and load capacity. Complex mechanical structures often mean operational flexibility but limited load-bearing ability. Conversely, robust hands find it hard to perform complex tasks. At major exhibitions like the World AI Conference, companies showcase advanced five-finger hands that are aesthetically pleasing and expensive. For simple tasks, many opt for practical two-finger grippers.

"Two-finger grippers have no lifespan issues, but their application scenarios are limited. They work for simple gripping in controlled environments, but they can't cover the millions of SKUs in a warehouse," Dong Qipeng explained.

This calls for a compromise in practice. Geek+ recently launched a robot with a three-finger hand. "We chose the three-finger form to balance operational dexterity for covering massive SKUs with enough volume and capacity for reliability and lifespan design, including cable routing and motor selection," Dong Qipeng said. This choice aims to address the final lifespan shortfall in humanoid robot deployment.

The dexterous hand issue reflects the immaturity of the robotics supply chain.

This year, Zhiyuan Robot deployed its Lingjing G2 robot into a tablet factory run by Longcheer Technology. Some core components for this robot only began screening, finalization, selection, and qualification at the start of 2025. "Early on, it was hard to find core components that fully met our standards—whether in performance, production capacity, quality management, or delivery," said Yao Maoqing, a partner at Zhiyuan, in a prior interview. To address this, one of Zhiyuan's quality engineers was sent directly to the core component supplier for over three months without ever reporting to the office.

The Lingjing G2 robot also faced harsh tests after entering the Longcheer factory. Yao Maoqing revealed that when it first entered in December last year, the team was confident they could easily handle the deployment scenario. However, they discovered that in the high-load, high-tempo work environment, numerous software, hardware, communication, and on-site equipment integration issues needed optimization and polishing, identifying and fixing dozens of problems.

When robots enter factories, users expect plug-and-play productivity, not recurring failures requiring restarts and repairs. Yao Maoqing stated that customers want "deployment-ready" robots, "just like buying a car—you place it down and it works steadily."

The supply chain's maturity is closely tied to robot pricing. Chinese robot companies generally offer prices in the tens of thousands of yuan, which is unfavorable for large-scale deployment. As humanoid robots move toward mass production, they are gradually maturing the supply chain. A mature industrial chain is essential for continuously lowering robot costs and prices, allowing robots to finally enter the real world.