Unitree Robot Dog Tops Mount Tai to Win Championship; Humanoid Robot G1 Carried Down the Mountain on a Stretcher Due to Overheating

Unitree robot dog wins Mount Tai race, humanoid robot withdraws due to overheating.

On November 2 on Mount Tai, a scene of stark contrast unfolded.

On one side, the Beijing Lingyi Technology team under Unitree Robotics, with its A2 robot dog, won the legged robot speed race with an actual time of 41 minutes 41 seconds (final time 43 minutes 41 seconds, including a 2-minute penalty). Over a 3.9-kilometer course with more than 3,100 steps, the A2 used fully autonomous mode throughout, perceiving and making decisions in real time, achieving stable and rapid movement on irregular stone steps.

On the other side, the Unitree G1 humanoid robot, the same model featured in the Spring Festival Gala, overheated midway through the race and was placed on a stretcher by staff and carried down the mountain. The operator explained that out of concern the machine would overheat, they chose to withdraw midway for safety reasons. This machine was entered by Yongda Zhicheng based on the Unitree G1 developer edition and was not an official Unitree entry.

Two kinds of robots, two outcomes. This was not a show; it was an exam question.

01 The robot dog passed; the humanoid robot was carried down the mountain

The first CMG World Robot Mount Tai Climbing Competition was hosted by China Media Group and jointly organized with the China Software Testing Center, relevant departments of Shandong Province and the Tai'an Municipal People's Government. The course runs from Red Gate to Zhongtian Gate along the mountain climbing trail, about 3.9 kilometers with more than 3,100 steps, with continuous stone stairs and steep slopes and curves as the core challenges, testing the robots' locomotion and autonomous decision-making capabilities in complex mountain environments. A qualifying round was held on October 26, and the main race concluded on November 2.

Unitree's report card was 1 gold and 2 silvers. Lingyi Technology's A2 won the speed race championship; the Shanghai Gaoyi Technology team won second place in the speed race using the Unitree A2, and second place in the load-bearing race using the Unitree B2. In the Wanxian Tower to Doumu Palace section, the B2 carried an effective payload of 66 kilograms, with an actual payload including the rack of 74 kilograms, steadily climbing steps at full load.

It is worth noting that Unitree officially entered only two quadruped robots, the A2 and B2, citing limited time and resources; many independent teams also spontaneously participated on-site after secondary development based on Unitree products. The G1 that was carried down the mountain was Yongda Zhicheng's entry, the Unitree G1 developer edition, the same model as in the Spring Festival Gala. In other words, both the one that reached the summit and the one that withdrew were built on Unitree's technology base, but in different forms.

02 Quadrupeds can make it up; humanoids cannot, and the bottleneck is heat dissipation

Withdrawing due to overheating was not accidental. From a structural standpoint, humanoid robots have a high center of gravity and a narrow gait, and each step requires joint motors to continuously output high torque to counter gravity. Running 100 meters in a lab may be no problem, but in an environment like Mount Tai with continuous climbing and poor heat dissipation conditions, local air cooling cannot keep up with the accumulation of heat.

This is an industry-wide problem, not one unique to Unitree. A machinery industry research report from Sealand Securities broke down the sources of heat: when a robot operates, about 90% of energy is directly converted into heat rather than work. Joint motor windings generate substantial copper loss during high-torque output; reducers generate friction heat from gear friction and lubricant viscous resistance during high-speed or frequent forward-reverse rotation; power devices in drivers also continuously lose energy under high-frequency operation; and the onboard GPU and NPU chips are also major heat sources during visual processing. If heat cannot be expelled, joints will overheat and throttle, and dexterous hands will lose precision.

Quadruped robots, however, have a natural structural advantage: a low center of gravity and force distributed across four limbs, so the load pressure on a single joint is lower than the high-torque conditions of humanoid lower limbs. Even so, the championship run was far from easy. On-site reports mentioned that some steep slope sections still required rope assistance, some continuous operation required spray cooling, and some needed replacement parts due to joint wear and foot-end damage.

On this Mount Tai exam question, quadruped robots barely passed, while the humanoid robot suffered heatstroke outright. Heat dissipation, endurance and reliability—these least "sexy" engineering problems—are precisely the watershed determining whether robots can move from the laboratory into the real world.

03 Unitree's books: quadrupeds are making money, humanoids are catching up

Another point of interest in this competition is Unitree's product line strategy as the first A-share listed humanoid robot company.

On August 19, 2026, Unitree Robotics listed on the STAR Market. From a seed-round valuation of 13.33 million yuan in 2016 to a market value of nearly 61 billion yuan, its valuation grew more than 4,500 times over ten years. As of July 2026, Unitree had produced about 18,000 bipedal humanoid robots cumulatively; full-year shipments in 2025 exceeded 5,500 units (pure humanoid basis, excluding wheeled dual-arm robots), ranking first globally; the 2026 shipment target is 10,000 to 20,000 units.

In terms of revenue structure, from January to September 2025, Unitree's humanoid robot revenue surpassed quadruped robot revenue for the first time, at 595 million yuan and 488 million yuan respectively.

But the top position in humanoids is not secure. A field visit by Cailian Press in June this year showed that Unitree concentratedly displays and sells C-end products such as the G1 humanoid robot basic edition (85,000 yuan), the R1 humanoid robot basic edition (29,999 yuan) and the Go2 robot dog in its experience store. Commercial consumer revenue from quadruped robots has already surpassed scientific research and education for the first time, while 70% of humanoid robots are still sold to universities and research institutes.

Competition is fiercer on the shipment side. According to Counterpoint Research data, in the global humanoid robot shipment landscape in the first half of 2026, AgiBot ranked first with about 9,700 units and a share of over 43%, while Unitree ranked second with over 7,000 units and about 31%; in terms of shipment destinations, entertainment and commercial performances and science education and data collection still accounted for more than 60%, and humanoid robots still have a clear distance to go before reaching the production frontline.

Unitree's base in quadruped robots is not weak: from 2023 to 2025, Unitree's cumulative quadruped robot sales exceeded 30,000 units, ranking first globally for many consecutive years; its first quarterly report after listing showed revenue of 1.817 billion yuan in the first three quarters of 2026, up 55.71% year on year, but non-recurring net profit was 349 million yuan, down 18.78% year on year. The main reason for the profit decline is that the company concentrated funds on embodied large-model research and development and computing power, that is, catching up on humanoid robots.

Looking at the books and Mount Tai together, Unitree's strategy is clear: quadruped robots can already autonomously climb more than 3,100 steps and are accelerating toward real scenarios such as mountain inspection and material transport, a business that can generate revenue immediately; humanoid robots are still catching up on basic engineering problems such as overheating, and must first scale up production capacity and shipments before solving the problem of being able to climb without overheating.

Quadrupeds are making money; humanoids are catching up. The A2 that reached the summit of Mount Tai is already selling products, while the G1 carried down on a stretcher is still waiting for liquid cooling. Which one the market will pay for—the answer is not in the competition, but in the next financial report.

This article comes from the WeChat public account "Caineng Quan" and is published by 36Kr with authorization.