If you want to understand where the global robotics industry is heading, you need to go to Shenzhen. Not Silicon Valley. Not Tokyo. Shenzhen. The city where DJI, UBTECH, and Unitree all built their companies. Where you can prototype a robot arm in the morning and have the parts manufactured by afternoon. Where, as Tuo Liu from Robotuo puts it: "Every day is CES in Shenzhen."
We talked to two people who know the Shenzhen robotics scene better than almost anyone. Francesco Crivelli, a 23-year-old UC Berkeley and Columbia robotics graduate who visited over 500 robot companies across China. And Tuo Liu, who runs Robotuo, an open source robotics community with 250+ global founders, and who has literally mapped the city's robotics clusters.
This article is a practical guide based on their firsthand experience. Where to go, who to talk to, and what you'll actually find when you get there.
Why Shenzhen Is the World's Robotics Capital
Shenzhen was already the world's hardware capital before robotics took off. The supply chain density here is unlike anything else on the planet. Need a specific motor, sensor, or actuator? Someone within a 30-minute drive is making it. That geographic compression changes everything about how fast you can build.
Nanshan District is the epicenter. DJI's headquarters sits here. So does UBTECH. And Unitree, which has been making headlines with its humanoid robots. The GDP per square kilometer in Nanshan is among the highest in all of China, and a big chunk of that comes from robotics and AI companies packed into a relatively small area.
But what makes Shenzhen different from, say, Boston's robotics corridor or the Bay Area isn't just the concentration of companies. It's the speed. Francesco told us that Western robotics startups spend months waiting for custom parts. In Shenzhen, you walk to Huaqiangbei, buy what you need off the shelf, and start testing the same day. That feedback loop -- build, test, break, rebuild -- runs at a pace that's hard to appreciate until you've seen it yourself.
There's also a cultural factor at play. Robotics founders in Shenzhen don't treat hardware as a necessary evil the way many Silicon Valley software-first teams do. Hardware is the point. The city attracts engineers who actually want to get their hands on physical machines, not just write code that runs in simulation.
Where to Find Robotics Startups in Shenzhen
Knowing that Shenzhen is important is one thing. Knowing where to actually go is another. Here are the specific areas and clusters where robotics startups concentrate.
Nanshan District Tech Parks
This is where you start. Nanshan hosts the largest cluster of robotics companies in the city. The tech parks here range from massive campuses (think DJI's Skyworth-style headquarters) to smaller incubator buildings where three-person teams are building their first prototypes. If you only have one day in Shenzhen for robotics, spend it in Nanshan.
What's notable is the diversity. You'll find humanoid robotics companies next door to agricultural drone startups, next to teams building inspection robots for power lines. The talent pool cross-pollinates. Engineers who cut their teeth at DJI go on to found companies building entirely different types of machines.
Shenzhen Robot Valley
Tuo Liu from Robotuo has mapped the robotics clusters in Shenzhen, and Robot Valley is one of the key zones. It's a designated area that the local government has been actively developing to attract robotics companies, with subsidized rent, shared testing facilities, and proximity to component suppliers.
The advantage of visiting Robot Valley versus randomly wandering around Nanshan is density. You can hit five or six robotics startups in a single afternoon without getting in a car. That matters when you're trying to build a mental model of what the industry actually looks like on the ground.
Huaqiangbei
Huaqiangbei is famous as the world's largest electronics market, but it's also a critical part of the robotics supply chain. This is where founders go for rapid prototyping. Need a specific connector? A particular type of servo? A custom PCB fabricated in 24 hours? Huaqiangbei can do that.
For robotics founders, Huaqiangbei functions less as a retail market and more as a same-day supply chain. Francesco mentioned that some of the startups he visited would literally send someone to Huaqiangbei in the morning to grab parts, then have a working prototype by evening. Try doing that in Munich or San Jose.
InnoX Academy
InnoX (also known as Shenzhen Academy in some contexts) operates as a hardware-focused accelerator and incubator. It's specifically designed for international founders who want to build hardware products in Shenzhen but don't know where to start. They provide workspace, manufacturing connections, and the kind of local knowledge that takes years to build on your own.
If you're a non-Chinese founder thinking about building robotics hardware, InnoX is probably your first stop. They bridge the gap between "I have an idea" and "I have a factory producing my parts."
What Francesco Learned from 500 Factory Visits
Francesco Crivelli is 23 years old. He studied EECS at UC Berkeley, did his master's in robotics at Columbia, and worked at the Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (BAIR) lab. Then he moved to China to see the robotics industry firsthand.
Not from a conference stage. Not from analyst reports. He went to the factories.
Over the course of his time in China, Francesco visited more than 500 robot companies. The sheer range of what he saw is staggering. Humanoid robots, yes -- those get the headlines. But also desktop robotic arms for education, service robots for restaurants and hotels, inspection drones for industrial facilities, AI-powered wearable devices, and agricultural robots that most Western media never covers.
"The gap between what Western media reports about Chinese robotics and what's actually happening on the ground is enormous. Most coverage focuses on a handful of humanoid companies. But the real story is the hundreds of smaller companies building practical robots that are already deployed and generating revenue."
That last point is worth sitting with. The Western robotics narrative tends to focus on billion-dollar moonshots -- humanoids that can do backflips, general-purpose robots that will supposedly replace all human labor. The Shenzhen reality is more mundane but arguably more impressive: hundreds of companies building specific robots for specific jobs, and actually shipping them.
Francesco also noticed something about the talent flow. Many of the founders he met had spent time abroad -- at US universities, at European research labs -- before coming back to Shenzhen to build. They understood both worlds. They could read the latest papers from MIT or Stanford and then walk downstairs to a factory floor to implement what they'd learned. That combination is rare, and it gives Shenzhen-based teams a real advantage.
You can hear the full conversation with Francesco in Episode 6 of the Asiabits Podcast.
The Global Founders Pattern
One of the most interesting patterns both Francesco and Tuo described is what we'd call the "two Bay Areas" model. It works like this: raise money in the Bay Area (San Francisco), spend it in the Bay Area (Shenzhen's Nanshan District), sell to the world.
Why not just stay in the US? Because hardware manufacturing at scale requires the kind of supply chain that only exists in southern China. And why not just stay in China? Because the biggest customers and the deepest capital markets are still in the West. The founders who figure out how to operate across both worlds have a structural advantage over those who stay in one.
Tuo Liu's Robotuo community of 250+ global founders is a living example of this pattern. These are people from all over the world -- the US, Europe, Japan, Southeast Asia -- who have figured out that Shenzhen is where you go to build robotics hardware. The community shares knowledge about manufacturers, component suppliers, and the practical details of operating in China that you can't learn from a Google search.
There's another angle here that doesn't get enough attention: open source. China's tech companies have been increasingly embracing open source, from DeepSeek in AI to various robotics platforms. For hardware founders, this means access to reference designs, software stacks, and development tools that would cost millions to build from scratch. Shenzhen's robotics scene benefits from this openness in ways that aren't always visible from the outside.
We covered Tuo's perspective in detail in Episode 8 of the Asiabits Podcast, including his maps of Shenzhen's robotics clusters and how his community connects founders across borders.
How to Get Started
So you want to see this for yourself. Here's how to actually do it, based on what we've learned from Francesco, Tuo, and our own time on the ground.
Time Your Visit
Shenzhen hosts several major robotics and electronics expos throughout the year. Visiting during one of these events gives you a concentrated view of the industry -- you can meet dozens of companies in a single venue over a few days. But honestly, the city is worth visiting anytime. Unlike many trade-show-dependent industries, Shenzhen's robotics scene is active year-round because the companies are building here, not just exhibiting.
Connect Through Communities
Cold-calling Chinese robotics companies from abroad rarely works. The better approach is to connect through existing communities. Robotuo is a good starting point -- Tuo Liu's community specifically exists to connect international founders with Shenzhen's robotics scene. InnoX Academy is another entry point, especially if you're looking at hardware acceleration.
WeChat groups for robotics founders are another critical channel. These groups are where deals get made, introductions happen, and factory recommendations get shared. If you don't have WeChat set up before you arrive, you're operating with a handicap.
Go Beyond the Big Names
Everyone knows about DJI and UBTECH. But the most interesting companies in Shenzhen are often the ones you've never heard of -- teams of 10-30 people building highly specialized robots for specific industries. A factory visit to one of these smaller companies will teach you more about the state of Chinese robotics than reading a hundred analyst reports.
Consider a Guided Approach
If you want to see the robotics industry without spending weeks building your own network first, Asiabits runs a Robotics Expedition that takes small groups through the key hubs. We handle the introductions, factory access, and logistics so you can focus on actually learning.
Whether you go independently or with a group, the main thing is to go. Shenzhen's robotics scene is evolving fast. What's true today might look different in six months. The only way to really understand it is to be there.
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