Chinese robots make extensive use of composite materials

Traditional humanoid robots, in pursuit of high dynamic performance, generally use expensive aerospace-grade aluminium or even titanium alloys as body materials, which directly drives up costs. “Bumi” takes the opposite approach, making extensive use of composite materials. “This is not a simple downgrade of plasticisation, but a complete innovation based on a profound engineering understanding“, Noetix underlines.

Jiang Zheyuan, founder and chairman of Noetix, explains that the team comprehensively optimised the structural design, using “metal reinforcement in some parts and composite materials in others,” achieving an extreme weight reduction (12kg) while ensuring core strength. This weight reduction further led to cost reduction, creating a virtuous cycle.

According to the latest official data, 100 units of “Bumi” sold out within an hour of its launch on JD.com, and the first batch of 500 units sold out within 2 days.

Currently, Noetix’s Beijing plant has a monthly delivery capacity exceeding 200 units, and the first phase of its Changzhou plant is expected to reach a monthly delivery capacity of 300 units by December 2025. Furthermore, a third plant with a planned capacity of 500 units per month is under preparation, bringing the total delivery capacity to over 1,000 units per month.

Vertically integrated industrial platform

In the Chinese Southern city of Shenzhen, Gon Future, a subsidiary of China’s petrochemicals group Gon Technology, held its 2025 AI New Product Launch Event on November 11. The event showcased several  advancements in areas such as robotic structural design, motion control, environmental perception and human-machine interaction, as the company extends its “New Materials+” strategy into the innovative field of embodied intelligence.

At this press conference, Gon Future unveiled for the first time 3 major product directions in the robotics field, including a four-legged robot. The body features a lightweight structural power component with a newly designed, PEEK (polyether ether ketone) + a carbon-fibre composite frame. “This innovative design achieves weight reduction of more than 30%, while boosting endurance by approximately 40% under load conditions. Additionally, the use of high-performance materials—known for their exceptional fatigue resistance and chemical corrosion durability—ensures stable operation across an extreme temperature range from -30°C to 120°C“, Gon Future explained.

The company highlighted the critical role of new materials in advancing the robotics industry. Leveraging the company’s strengths in a vertically integrated industrial platform for advanced materials, combined with its deep expertise in specialty engineering plastics—particularly its comprehensive, end-to-end capabilities spanning from upstream polymerisation to downstream product manufacturing. According too the company, this expertise enables Gon to excel in key areas such as lightweighting, high load capacity, and extended service life, thereby establishing a distinct competitive edge that will drive the company’s sustained growth in the robotics sector.