Published : 2025-03-24
Who is Wang Xingxing? The dancing Unitree robot on China's 2025 Spring Festival Gala is the masterpiece of Wang Xingxing. He has developed many products, among which quadruped robots occupy more than 60% of the global market.
What many may not have expected is that this robotics genius, who aims to change the world, was once considered a "slow child" by his teachers and was a "poor performer" in English.
Wang Xingxing is full of ideas and has strong practical abilities
In 1990, Wang Xingxing (王興興) was born into an ordinary family in Yuyao, Zhejiang Province. He shares many common traits with other inventors—having a lot of creative ideas about everything and strong practical abilities. From a young age, he loved to collect various materials for experiments and "small inventions."
Wang Xingxing's first creation was a small wind-powered car made in elementary school. He continued to challenge himself with more difficult projects; in middle school, he created a micro-turbine jet engine, and in high school, he delved into rechargeable batteries, which were unimaginable feats for his peers.
In terms of academics, Wang could not be considered outstanding though.
He had a strong bias towards science subjects and was very poor in literature, particularly in English, where he performed terribly. "I basically couldn't remember English words, couldn't recite them, and was always terrible at it."
He said, "Once in middle school, during a parent-teacher conference, my English teacher told my parents that this kid was a bit dumb." His English grades did not improve after that either, and he only passed three of the many English exams he took in high school.
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Building a robot with 200 RMB, Wang Xingxing challenges the impossible
Due to his significant imbalanced performance on academic subjects, Wang Xingxing's total score was dragged down. He ended up missing out on his most desired Zhejiang University, only being able to enrol in Zhejiang Sci-Tech University, which had slightly lower admission scores.
Just after entering university, Wang suddenly had a quirky idea to make a robot with his own hands. Though no one was optimistic about it, he believed that nothing is impossible in the world.
"Without equipment, I used a small hand drill, file, and scissors; without funds, I bought parts for 9 RMB and scavenged unwanted scrap materials. In the end, with just 200 RMB, I made a small bipedal robot," said Wang Xingxing.
It was from that time that he truly discovered his talent and ran forward in a direction he excelled at. At that time, he was equally fascinated by the cutting-edge subject closely related to robots — AI.
Wang Xingxing: People from top-tier schools are not that special
At this moment, Wang Xingxing has become increasingly confident.
"Before undergraduate studies, I was still very worried and even a bit inferior because my school performance was not very good. But after entering university, I had more room to play. I could make a lot of robots or other things with my own hands. Gradually, you start to realise that people from top-tier schools are not that special," he said in an interview.
Upon graduating with a bachelor's degree, Wang Xingxing went to Shanghai University to pursue a master's in mechanical engineering. By this point, with his practical experience, he confirmed that small-sized electric-driven, highly flexible quadruped robots were the future direction for development and thus delved deeper into research.
In 2015, Wang applied for a deferred graduation and took his developed XDog to participate in a robot design competition. As a result, he won second place and a prize of 80,000 RMB, marking his "first pot of gold" in life. XDog also pioneered the then low-cost, high-performance quadruped robot solutions.
Wang Xingxing said, "(XDog) basically represented the best level in the academic circle. Under the same specifications, its movement flexibility and stability were very good."
Robot dog's popularity makes Wang Xingxing determined to start a business
After graduation, what's next? Wang Xingxing naturally wanted to start a business and also get in touch with some angel investors.
In fact, the seed of entrepreneurship was planted during his primary school days.
Once, when chatting with classmates about what they wanted to do when they grew up, Wang Xingxing said he wanted to be a scientist, while his classmate wanted to be an entrepreneur because being an entrepreneur, you could hire a bunch of scientists to do scientific research for you.
After hearing his classmate's words, Wang "suddenly realised this idea seemed pretty good."
However, upon graduation from his master's programme, Wang Xingxing believed that the robot market was still immature, so he decided to head south to Shenzhen, joining DJI as an engineer.
Unexpectedly, before the probation period was over, his XDog went viral in tech media. Someone wanted to buy it, and someone was willing to invest.
At the age of 26, Wang Xingxing decided to resign and, in 2016, used the angel funds to establish Unitree Robotics and embarked on the road of starting his own business.
As everyone knows, Wang Xingxing's business was very successful. His company expanded rapidly within a few years. With its technical and low-cost advantages, the robotic dog quickly captured over 60% of the global market, outpacing Western tech giants.
Wang Xingxing: Using tech capabilities to change the world
The mechanical bull performed at the 2012 China Central Television (CCTV) Spring Festival Gala with Andy Lau and Guan Xiaotong, the mechanical dog that transported the discus at the Hangzhou Asian Games, as well as the mechanical dog that carried goods up Mount Tai in 2024, are all products of Wang Xingxing's company.
What truly stunned the world, of course, was when the robots, powered by AI-driven full-body motion control technology, appeard on the 2025 CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
Dressed in brightly coloured red and green floral outfits, they performed the traditional Chinese "Yangge" dance, twirling handkerchiefs and changing formations in sync with the music on stage.
"From a young age, I have hoped to use my technological abilities to create valuable new things to prove myself and to change the world. This has been my greatest source of internal support and motivation for progress," Wang Xingxing once said.
With the efforts of Wang Xingxing and other scientific and technological workers, robots going into people's homes might come true in the near future.
