Chinese Education Group Pivots to Humanoid-Robot Workforce Training as Embodied-AI Hype Outruns Deployment
A Chinese private-education group built on exam preparation and high-school campuses is repositioning around the humanoid-robot economy. Beijing-based One-Gao Technology Group says it has set up an embodied-AI division, is rolling out "future learning centres" for AI talent in cities including Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chongqing, and is planning an embodied-AI modern industry college alliance in Xiong'an New Area. Chairman Zhang Shaowei will set out the strategy at GET2026, JMDedu's education-technology conference in Beijing on 25-26 November.
The pivot lands at an awkward moment for the industry it is chasing. In a report released on 16 October, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), working with Tsinghua University's electronics department and an embodied-AI testing laboratory, described Chinese embodied AI as hot on the surface, cold underneath: capital and policy are surging while deployment lags.
The money is real. Domestic embodied-AI companies raised about RMB 93.5 billion (roughly US$13.2 billion) across 322 deals in the first half of 2026, about five times the year-earlier level and already more than the RMB 73.5 billion raised in all of 2025, according to IT Juzi figures cited in the report. The top 20 companies absorbed about RMB 55 billion, or 59% of the total, and 20 companies are now valued at RMB 10 billion or more.
Shipments are climbing faster than actual use. Global humanoid-robot shipments exceeded 22,000 units in the first half, up nearly 300% year on year on Counterpoint data, with five Chinese manufacturers taking more than 86%. But more than 60% of those units went to entertainment and stage performance or to science-education data collection, 19% to guidance and retail, 13% to smart manufacturing and 5% to warehousing and logistics. Among disclosed contracts, 55.5% went to education and research institutions, 20.6% to government platforms and only 21.1% to industrial companies; many machines run fewer than 10 days a month.
Prices are already correcting. Daily rental for a humanoid robot fell from tens of thousands of yuan in early 2025 to a few thousand in 2026, and used engineering samples that once sold for RMB 300,000-800,000 now fetch RMB 30,000-60,000. CAICT expects the first industry shakeout within two to three years.
Forecasters still see rapid growth. TrendForce expects 2026 to be the commercialisation inflection point, with global shipments above 50,000 units, up more than 700%, and demand diverging: elder care in Japan, manufacturing and logistics in the US, and manufacturing, companionship and consumer devices in China. iResearch projects the Chinese market could grow 100-fold over a decade to RMB 200-300 billion.
The gap between machines shipped and machines actually working is where One-Gao sees a training business. The group traces its roots to Yunnan, where its main domestic entity, Changshui Education Group, was founded in 2005; it opened a Beijing company in 2014 and took its school arm, First High-School Education Group, to the New York Stock Exchange in March 2021 under the ticker FHS, raising about US$75 million. The ADSs were suspended in November 2022 for falling below the exchange's market-capitalisation floor, and the company went private in 2025. It has since combined group-run schools with "AI education schools", acquired a large vocational-education group and set up Hualing AI, a career-services arm. It is now recruiting for embodied-AI roles and developing industry-education curricula.
CAICT's caveat is blunt: deployment still depends on site modification, custom tuning and human support, and changing a task requires fresh data and retraining. That is a labour problem before it is a hardware problem - which is the market One-Gao is betting on.
The pivot lands at an awkward moment for the industry it is chasing. In a report released on 16 October, the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT), working with Tsinghua University's electronics department and an embodied-AI testing laboratory, described Chinese embodied AI as hot on the surface, cold underneath: capital and policy are surging while deployment lags.
The money is real. Domestic embodied-AI companies raised about RMB 93.5 billion (roughly US$13.2 billion) across 322 deals in the first half of 2026, about five times the year-earlier level and already more than the RMB 73.5 billion raised in all of 2025, according to IT Juzi figures cited in the report. The top 20 companies absorbed about RMB 55 billion, or 59% of the total, and 20 companies are now valued at RMB 10 billion or more.
Shipments are climbing faster than actual use. Global humanoid-robot shipments exceeded 22,000 units in the first half, up nearly 300% year on year on Counterpoint data, with five Chinese manufacturers taking more than 86%. But more than 60% of those units went to entertainment and stage performance or to science-education data collection, 19% to guidance and retail, 13% to smart manufacturing and 5% to warehousing and logistics. Among disclosed contracts, 55.5% went to education and research institutions, 20.6% to government platforms and only 21.1% to industrial companies; many machines run fewer than 10 days a month.
Prices are already correcting. Daily rental for a humanoid robot fell from tens of thousands of yuan in early 2025 to a few thousand in 2026, and used engineering samples that once sold for RMB 300,000-800,000 now fetch RMB 30,000-60,000. CAICT expects the first industry shakeout within two to three years.
Forecasters still see rapid growth. TrendForce expects 2026 to be the commercialisation inflection point, with global shipments above 50,000 units, up more than 700%, and demand diverging: elder care in Japan, manufacturing and logistics in the US, and manufacturing, companionship and consumer devices in China. iResearch projects the Chinese market could grow 100-fold over a decade to RMB 200-300 billion.
The gap between machines shipped and machines actually working is where One-Gao sees a training business. The group traces its roots to Yunnan, where its main domestic entity, Changshui Education Group, was founded in 2005; it opened a Beijing company in 2014 and took its school arm, First High-School Education Group, to the New York Stock Exchange in March 2021 under the ticker FHS, raising about US$75 million. The ADSs were suspended in November 2022 for falling below the exchange's market-capitalisation floor, and the company went private in 2025. It has since combined group-run schools with "AI education schools", acquired a large vocational-education group and set up Hualing AI, a career-services arm. It is now recruiting for embodied-AI roles and developing industry-education curricula.
CAICT's caveat is blunt: deployment still depends on site modification, custom tuning and human support, and changing a task requires fresh data and retraining. That is a labour problem before it is a hardware problem - which is the market One-Gao is betting on.
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