(This article is authored by CLS of Chanlian, and published on Titanium Media with authorization.)
Article | Industry Alliance
In the robotics sector, the most expensive asset today isn’t computing power—it’s talent.
Since the beginning of this year, the embodied intelligence sector has continued to gain momentum, with companies simultaneously pursuing fundraising and capacity expansion while vying for talent in the job market. Some firms are offering top-tier scientists annual salaries exceeding 100 million yuan, while others have broadened their recruitment efforts to include recent graduates and current doctoral students, fearing they might miss out on the next generation of technical leaders.
During this year’s spring recruitment season, the number of AI-related job openings surged dramatically, with hiring demand for embodied intelligence roles skyrocketing by 15 times and an average monthly salary reaching RMB 62,000.
Earlier in April, UBTECH publicly recruited a Chief Scientist for Embodied Intelligence, offering a total annual salary package starting at 15 million yuan and topping out at 124 million yuan. When converted to a daily rate, the highest compensation amounts to nearly 500,000 yuan per day.
Behind this massive recruitment drive lies the rapid expansion of the entire industry, fueled by capital. Data shows that in the first half of this year, total financing for China’s embodied intelligence sector has surpassed RMB 90 billion, nearly five times the figure from the same period last year.
However, as capital pours in and multi-billion-dollar unicorns rush to expand their market share, the biggest bottleneck hindering corporate growth is no longer funding or algorithms, but rather the shortage of qualified talent.
Robotics sector: sky-high salaries to poach talent
How severe is the talent shortage in the embodied intelligence industry? Data from the recruitment market has already provided the answer.
According to the “Maimai 2026 Spring Recruitment Workplace Insights Report” released by Maimai’s High-Paying Talent Think Tank, from January to April 2026, the number of AI-related job postings in China increased 8.7-fold year over year. Notably, positions related to embodied intelligence surged 15-fold, with an average monthly salary reaching RMB 62,000.
From the perspective of the entire robotics industry, hiring demand is also growing rapidly.
The “2026 Talent Supply-and-Demand Trends Insight Report for the Robotics Sector,” released by Liepin’s Big Data Research Institute, shows that from January to July 2026, newly posted job openings in the robotics field increased by 60.17% year over year, with the humanoid robotics sub-segment growing by 147.02%.
A significant talent shortage has directly driven up the salary caps for top-tier professionals.
On April 2, 2026, UBTECH, the “first humanoid robot stock” on the Hong Kong stock exchange, publicly announced a global recruitment drive for a Chief Scientist of Embodied Intelligence, offering a total annual salary ranging from a minimum of RMB 15 million to a maximum of RMB 124 million—salary levels directly benchmarked against those of Silicon Valley’s top tech giants.
UBTECH disclosed in its 2025 financial report that its full-size, embodied intelligent humanoid robots generated RMB 821 million in revenue and sold 1,079 units. Despite a full-year net loss of RMB 790 million, the company still reported cash reserves of RMB 4.92 billion, underscoring its determination to invest heavily in recruiting top-tier technical leaders.
Shortly thereafter, in mid-April 2026, internal leaks from Dreame’s Magic Atom division revealed plans to recruit a chief scientist with an annual salary of 200 million yuan, once again redefining industry expectations for talent compensation.
In overseas markets, competition is equally fierce: in May 2025, OpenAI acquired an AI hardware team of just 55 people for $6.5 billion, equating to over $100 million per person; when Boston Dynamics poached the head of Tesla’s robotics program, the annual salary offered exceeded $2 million.
The compensation for top talent has risen sharply, further boosting the campus recruitment and internship markets.
During the 2026 autumn recruitment season, offers of RMB 500,000 per year for outstanding recent master’s and doctoral graduates in the field of embodied intelligence have already been jokingly referred to as “rock-bottom prices.”
To secure top-tier talent early on, some startups have even adopted a recruitment strategy of offering “internship‑to‑full‑time”待遇. As long as candidates commit to joining the company after graduation, they can receive salaries at the full‑time offer level during their third- or fourth-year internships, with monthly pay reaching up to RMB 100,000.
Beyond high salaries, the competition for talent among companies has become increasingly fierce, to the point where there is even talk of inflating company valuations around key personnel.
According to a report by Titanium Media, an investor revealed that within the embodied intelligence industry, there is a widely circulated “headcount valuation” formula: simply recruiting top professors from prestigious universities such as Tsinghua University and Zhejiang University as advisors or team members can boost a company’s valuation by 200 million to 500 million yuan; poaching core executives from leading firms can directly add another 50 million yuan to the valuation.
Companies are frantically poaching talent, essentially building up a reserve of skilled personnel for future industry competition. However, this cost‑unconstrained, high‑salary recruitment model is also gradually exposing underlying issues within the sector.
Beyond algorithms, engineering talent is also in high demand.
Why is there such a shortage of talent in embodied intelligence? The core reason is that it’s a “cross-disciplinary” field.
Traditional software only needs to run in the digital world, but robots must operate in the real world—understanding commands, recognizing objects, and executing actions via mechanical structures and motors. They not only have to “think clearly” but also be able to “act effectively.”
Therefore, embodied intelligence is not a single software algorithm or hardware device, but rather an interdisciplinary field that spans computer science, automatic control, mechanical engineering, artificial intelligence, and dynamics, among others.
In the past, talent cultivated by universities was largely confined to a single domain: those who understood algorithms might not be familiar with the physical constraints of real-world robots, while those versed in mechanical design might lack expertise in large-scale model technologies.
Currently, universities have begun adjusting their educational programs. In 2026, the Ministry of Education will, for the first time, add “Embodied Intelligence” as a major to the undergraduate catalog and will support nine institutions—including Harbin Institute of Technology and Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics—in establishing related majors.
However, the new major is still in its infancy, and cultivating talent will take time. The first cohort of undergraduates won’t be ready to enter the workforce until at least 2030, which is far from addressing immediate needs. In the short term, companies will have to look for suitable candidates among related fields such as computer science, automation, and mechanical engineering, as well as in adjacent industries like autonomous driving and large-scale models.
Meanwhile, companies’ demand for talent is also evolving.
In the past two years, the main focus of competition was on algorithm engineers, with efforts centered on refining the robot’s “brain.” However, as humanoid robots have moved from laboratory demonstrations to real-world factory deployments, companies’ priorities have shifted from “whether the algorithms can work” to “whether the product can be stably mass-produced and delivered in large volumes.”
UBTECH is one such example. In 2025, UBTECH’s Walker series will be deployed in practical training scenarios across industries like automotive manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing, with annual deliveries of industrial humanoid robots exceeding 500 units. By 2026, the company has set a goal to increase its annual production capacity for industrial humanoid robots to 10,000 units.
With expanded production capacity, companies are no longer dealing solely with algorithmic challenges: Can robots operate stably over extended periods? Can components be supplied on time? Can manufacturing processes be standardized? And when equipment malfunctions, can it be promptly debugged and maintained? All of these depend on talent in engineering, manufacturing, and delivery.
Zhiyuan Robotics is also accelerating the scaling up of its production. In March 2026, Zhiyuan announced that its 10,000th general-purpose embodied robot had officially rolled off the assembly line. It took the company only about three months to go from 5,000 units to 10,000. This rapid increase in robot output has been made possible by seamless coordination across supply chain management, manufacturing, and quality control.
Recruitment data also confirms this shift. According to Liepin, from January to July 2026, among newly posted positions at embodied‑intelligence companies, algorithm engineer roles increased by 43.73% year over year; industrial engineer positions grew by 102.33%, electrical engineers by 98.94%, solutions engineers by 85.98%, and automation engineers by 85.51%.
It’s clear that companies don’t just need algorithm experts who can get robots up and running—they also need engineering talent capable of supporting mass production, implementing solutions in manufacturing plants, and resolving on-site issues.
Capital continues to pour in, further fueling this talent-grabbing frenzy.
According to data from IT Juzi, in the first half of 2026, total funding for China’s embodied intelligence sector exceeded RMB 93.5 billion, nearly five times the figure from the same period last year, with over 300 financing deals. As of mid-2026, the number of Chinese embodied‑intelligence unicorn companies valued at more than RMB 10 billion has surged to 22.
A flood of capital has given companies the confidence to expand their teams, invest in R&D, and build production lines. However, securing funding does not guarantee that commercialization will proceed smoothly.
Robotics R&D, hardware manufacturing, testing, and scenario deployment all require continuous investment. If companies keep offering high salaries to poach talent but fail to deliver stable products and secure real-world orders, the resulting high labor costs will ultimately become a burden on their operations.
Ultimately, what the embodied intelligence industry lacks most right now isn’t just people who can make models smarter—it’s people who can integrate those models into robots and enable them to perform reliably in real-world environments.
An annual salary of over 100 million yuan can attract top-tier scientists, but whether a robot can be sold and operate continuously and reliably in factories depends not on the technological breakthroughs of any single individual, but on the entire team’s ability to gradually turn that technology into a mature product.
Reference material:
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