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Robot Maintenance Is the Newest Job Market in China

China’s first generation of humanoid repair technicians is betting that millions of robots will eventually need fixing.

At 9:20 p.m., Zhao Xin appears on Douyin, China’s version of TikTok, with the leg of a robot dog sitting in front of him. He begins taking apart the motor inside its knee joint, explaining what may have gone wrong.

His account is one of dozens of Chinese short-video channels devoted to repairing robots.

Depending on how the market is counted, China shipped roughly 15,000 to 20,000 humanoid robots in 2025. Many went not to factories, but to universities, technology companies, shopping malls and event organizers. They danced, performed martial arts, greeted customers and served as expensive research platforms. IDC estimated that around 18,000 humanoids were shipped globally that year, with Chinese manufacturers accounting for most of the market.

But the industry has spent far more time discussing what robots may eventually do than answering a more immediate question: Who fixes them when they break?

A small group of Chinese technicians thinks it has found an opportunity. They call themselves, half jokingly, “robot doctors.” Their bet is simple. As robot sales rise, so will the number of broken robots. Someone will have to repair them.

China’s humanoids may still be looking for jobs. Their doctors are already waiting for patients.

When the Robot Falls Down

China’s humanoid industry accelerated rapidly after Unitree put its robots onstage at the 2025 Spring Festival Gala. Machines that had mostly lived in laboratories suddenly began appearing at corporate events, shopping malls and commercial performances.

Once robots began performing in front of crowds, however, they also began falling down in public.

On May 18, a Unitree G1 dressed as an ancient Chinese warrior was performing martial arts when one of its legs separated from its body. The aluminum limb slipped out of the costume and landed on the floor.

On July 16, two T800 robots made by Shenzhen-based ENGINEAI fought each other in a staged match. One kicked the other robot’s head off. The headless machine continued trying to finish its kicking sequence like a mechanical zombie.

It makes for entertaining video. It is less entertaining when you own the robot.

Manufacturers offer warranties, but those warranties come with conditions. Unitree currently provides 8 months of coverage for the basic G1 and 18 months for the EDU version. Damage caused by falls, improper use, unauthorized modification or disassembly may not be covered.

Even when a manufacturer agrees to repair the machine, sending it back can leave the owner without a robot for weeks.

Zhao saw an opening. He works for an organization in Inner Mongolia whose main business includes drone repair, but his Douyin account documents his attempts to dismantle and repair robot dogs and humanoids from scratch.

Born in 1990, Zhao studied civil engineering at a vocational college. He enjoyed taking electronics apart, but had never worked professionally as a repair technician. Almost everything he knows about robots is self-taught.

Six months ago, he opened his first robot dog. After putting it back together, he somehow had ten screws left over.

Later, while dismantling a humanoid, he snapped three screws and two clamps. Some of the threads had been secured with anaerobic adhesive. After heating them with a hot-air gun, Zhao learned that forcing the softened screws was an excellent way to break them.

A few months later, the work had become routine. An error message in the robot’s app usually points him toward the faulty subsystem. He then checks the physical symptoms, locates the damaged component and replaces it.

His conclusion is almost disappointing: mechanically, repairing many robot dogs and humanoids is not necessarily more difficult than fixing a drone or robotic vacuum.

Li Gang, a robot-rental operator in Wuhan, reached the same conclusion for a more practical reason.

Li bought 15 Unitree G1s for his rental business. Last June, one fell heavily during a shopping-mall performance and damaged its knee motor. The repair was judged to be outside warranty and would have cost more than $3,000. The robot itself had cost around $22,000.

So Li began taking the machines apart himself.

“It’s a survival skill,” he told me. “When China didn’t have many cars, drivers had to know how to fix their own cars too.”

Other rental operators now send their broken robots to him. Li charges around 60% to 80% of the manufacturer’s repair price. One repair shop in Shenzhen says it can sometimes cut the factory price in half.

More importantly, Li says he can usually return the robot within a week.

Repairing the Robot Is the Easy Part

There is no real textbook for this job.

China already has one of the world’s most sophisticated electronics-repair ecosystems. Walk through Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei electronics district and technicians can find schematics, identify chips, trace circuits and source replacement parts through enormous informal supplier networks.

Robots are different.

Their circuit diagrams are rarely public. Some manufacturers remove identifying marks from chips. Many components are heavily customized, and parts from one company usually cannot be installed in another company’s machine.

An employee at Booster Robotics told me that authorized dealers are often the only businesses allowed to order certain parts directly from manufacturers. For an independent technician, the most reliable source of a replacement component may be another robot of exactly the same model.

That creates a circular problem.

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