Unitree and China’s Humanoid Robot Gold Rush

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Welcome back to The Asia Tech Podcast. Today we discussed Unitree’s blockbuster IPO and China’s humanoid robot boom, plus how sovereign AI, agentic marketing, governed AI security, smarter hiring, affordable cybersecurity, tokenized real-world assets, and intelligent workplace tech are all reshaping business right now.

• 21:13 David Roi Hardoon - MD & Head, Advanced AI at Accenture

• 44:11 Marijke Timmers - Founder & Director at The Marketing Collective

• 1:02:22 David Irecki - Chief Technology Officer for APJ at Boomi

• 1:26:27 Haoyang Wu - Founder at AgenticHire

• 1:38:50 Gaurav Keerthi - Founder & CEO at StrongKeep Cybersecurity

• 2:04:04 Julia Filobokova - CEO and CoFounder at Sabai Protocol

• 2:24:14 Alister Wood - Founder at VisitUs

Here is an overview of the topics we discussed today:

Unitree just went public on China’s Star Market, and demand was wild — over 8,000 times oversubscribed. But is this hype, or is there a real business underneath? Turns out the robot maker pulled in $252 million in revenue last year, up more than 300%, and humanoids now make up over half its sales. Could this be the moment humanoid robots stop being a sci-fi promise and start being an actual product line?

David works on advanced AI at Accenture, and he says banks aren’t just automating tasks anymore — they’re teaching systems to reason through them. What happens when a wire transfer is missing one tiny detail, like a country code? David explains how “intelligent automation” can catch and fix problems like that with near-perfect confidence, without a human touching it. Is this the quiet shift that finally makes AI trustworthy enough for the back office?

Marijke runs a collective of marketing specialists who work with founders that are great at their craft but lost when it comes to promoting it. She says most small businesses jump straight to websites and ads without ever nailing down their strategy first. Why do so many founders treat marketing as an afterthought instead of a foundation? Marijke argues that agentic AI only pays off once that strategic thinking is in place.

David from Boomi returns to talk about a shift he’s watching closely: AI that used to just generate answers is now taking real actions inside a business. That jump, he says, moves companies from “output risk” to “action risk.” How do you keep agentic AI accountable once it’s actually doing things instead of just suggesting them? David breaks down what governance looks like when AI has its hands on the controls.

Haoyang built AgenticHire to solve a very specific headache: what happens when a single job post pulls in 2,000 applicants? His platform screens candidates across nine dimensions, from resilience to culture fit, using a short AI-run interview. But he’s careful to say the AI doesn’t decide who gets hired — it just narrows the pile. Where should the line sit between AI screening and human judgment?

Gaurav says most cybersecurity tools are built for big banks and telcos, leaving small firms priced out and overwhelmed. His analogy: enterprise security is a custom-built table, while what small businesses need is something more like IKEA — solid, simple, and within reach. What would it take to make real protection standard for a ten-person law firm instead of a luxury?

Julia’s company, Sabai Protocol, started as an internal project for a Thai real estate developer who wanted to sell property using crypto. Five years later, it’s a full white-label solution helping businesses tokenize assets from the ground up. What made this idea jump from one developer’s experiment into a whole industry? Julia walks through why more businesses keep asking for the same tool.

Alister’s company, VisitUs, tackles a surprisingly common blind spot: most workplaces don’t actually know who is inside at any given moment. From government offices to logistics sites, his visitor management system tracks everyone from staff to guests, especially useful in an emergency. Could knowing exactly who’s in the building be the missing piece of workplace safety?

That’s eight big conversations packed into one episode. Watch the full thing to hear all of them in David’s, Marijke’s, Haoyang’s, Gaurav’s, Julia’s, and Alister’s own words:

Watch the episode

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