Chinese humanoid (human-shaped robot) corporations have moved to secure key talent by offering annual salaries worth tens of billions of won. With China designating embodied intelligence (Embodied AI) as a national strategic industry and nurturing it while global big tech (large technology corporations) such as Tesla join the competition, the race for technological leadership is spilling over into a talent war.
On the 3rd, according to Chinese business outlet Cailian Press, UBTECH said in a recent job posting that it is launching a global open recruitment for a chief scientist in embodied intelligence. Embodied intelligence refers to "AI with a body." It means AI performing actions in the real physical world outside the screen, and is cited as a next-generation core field after Generative AI. The Washington Post (WP) called embodied intelligence "the biggest market opportunity ever."
The annual salary UBTECH offered for the chief scientist in embodied intelligence ranges from at least 15 million yuan (about 3.3 billion won) to as much as 1.24 billion yuan (about 27.2 billion won). According to the industry, compared with global big tech's AI talent pay in the hundreds of millions of won and tens of billions of won for some core staff, this is overwhelmingly high.
The company said the position is a key role overseeing the technology roadmap in humanoids and embodied intelligence. Specifically, it will lead areas such as vision-language-action (VLA) integrated models, foundational models for robots, and learning for manipulation and fine movements. Through this, it plans to extend technology that has remained at the research stage into real industrial settings and accelerate commercialization across categories including smart manufacturing, commercial services, and home robots. Alongside this, UBTECH is simultaneously hiring for dozens of core roles, including hardware engineers, software engineers, and developers.
According to Cailian Press, UBTECH, founded in 2012, is a technology corporations that spans the humanoid space, developing and producing service-robot solutions. It was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in Dec. 2023 and drew attention as the "first listed humanoid company." UBTECH is currently regarded as a leading corporations in the global humanoid market.
Its earnings growth is also steep. According to results the company released on the 31st, 2025 annual revenue was 2.01 billion yuan (about 440.6 billion won), up 53.3% from a year earlier. In particular, full-body embodied-intelligence humanoids accounted for 41% of total revenue, emerging as the biggest revenue source. Boosted by growth in that segment, gross profit rose 750 million yuan (about 164.4 billion won), up 101.5%, and gross profit in the robot institutional sector surged 448 million yuan (about 98.2 billion won), up 1,568.1%.
R&D investment is also continuing aggressively. Last year's R&D spending exceeded 500 million yuan (about 109.6 billion won), accounting for 25.4% of revenue. It holds about 3,000 patents, including more than 1,700 invention patents.
UBTECH is expanding the application of humanoids to manufacturing as well as logistics and services. In practice, it is deploying humanoids at factories of major Chinese automakers to test performance in assembly, inspection, and logistics assistance. Reuters said, "China is seeking to apply AI across society to boost productivity. It plans to expand the deployment of humanoids and AI automation equipment across production lines," adding that competition to secure key talent will intensify amid this industrial growth trend.