Unitree was upgraded by JPMorgan by two notches to Overweight from Underweight and had its price target raised to CNY 995 (approximately $150) from CNY 300 (approximately $45) in a report on Oct. 26, a move that sent the company’s shares up more than 7% on Shanghai’s STAR Market. The new target, set on a December 2027 timeframe, implies roughly 60% upside from the prior trading day’s close of CNY 624 (approximately $94) on Oct. 23.
The stock reacted immediately: Unitree closed up 7.69% at CNY 672.00 (approximately $100) on the STAR Market, the science and technology board operated by the Shanghai Stock Exchange, and climbed as much as 11% intraday to CNY 693.50 (approximately $100), a two-month high. The move contrasted with the Shanghai Composite Index and the CSI 300, which ended roughly flat the same day.
After the close, Unitree filed a disclosure on unusual share-price movement, saying its stock had risen more than 30 percentage points cumulatively over the past three trading sessions (Oct. 22, 23 and 26) relative to index moves over the same period. In the filing, the company noted that the humanoid industry is still in the early stages of commercialization and that physical AI technology faces multiple hurdles before it moves from lab demonstrations to large-scale deployment in the field.
Unitree upgrade follows World Physical AI Conference
JPMorgan tied the upgrade to last week’s 2026 World Physical AI Conference in Hangzhou. The bank had previously taken a cautious stance on Chinese listed robot companies, including Unitree, arguing they were overly focused on hardware and weak in software and developer platforms. JPMorgan said it changed its assessment after hearing from founder and CEO Wang Xingxing and other executives at the event and seeing the humanoid robot lineup firsthand.
At the conference, Wang said a technological breakthrough in physical AI could arrive in as little as one to two years, or at most two to three years — a sharp acceleration from his earlier forecast of up to 10 years. JPMorgan added that Unitree is “enhancing its strategic value further as robots, developers and real-world data form an ecosystem loop.” The bank also said “the slowdown caused by AI’s data bottleneck is easing significantly compared with the past.”
