{"id":240299,"date":"2026-03-18T09:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T13:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ibkrcampus.com\/campus\/?p=240299"},"modified":"2026-03-18T10:23:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T14:23:31","slug":"are-humanoid-robots-chinas-next-economic-engine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/campus\/podcasts\/ibkr-podcasts\/are-humanoid-robots-chinas-next-economic-engine\/","title":{"rendered":"Are Humanoid Robots China\u2019s Next Economic Engine?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>China\u2019s economy is pivoting toward automation and AI as policymakers push for greater innovation and self-reliance. Brendan Ahern of KraneShares joins IBKR&#8217;s Elizaveta Gridneva to discuss the rise of humanoid robotics and why embodied AI could become the country\u2019s next major growth engine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<iframe title=\"Are Humanoid Robots China\u2019s Next Economic Engine?\" allowtransparency=\"true\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" style=\"border: none; min-width: min(100%, 430px);height:150px;\" scrolling=\"no\" data-name=\"pb-iframe-player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.podbean.com\/player-v2\/?i=rnnj6-1a75cbf-pb&#038;from=pb6admin&#038;share=1&#038;download=1&#038;rtl=0&#038;fonts=Arial&#038;skin=1b1b1b&#038;font-color=ffffff&#038;logo_link=episode_page&#038;btn-skin=c73a3a\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-summary-ibkr-podcasts-ep-363\">Summary \u2013 IBKR Podcasts Ep. 363<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>The following is a summary of a live audio recording and may contain errors in spelling or grammar. Although IBKR has edited for clarity no material changes have been made<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome to our latest podcast. My name is Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva, and today I have my guest, Brendan Ahern, who is the CIO of&nbsp;KraneShares. Hi, Brendan.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Hello, Elizaveta. Thank you for the opportunity to connect.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-0\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you for joining us. I know that you have been studying China&nbsp;on a daily basis&nbsp;for the last decade, if not more. And I also heard that you have that blog called <a href=\"https:\/\/chinalastnight.com\/\">chinalastnight.com<\/a>. Can you tell us more about it?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-0\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>At&nbsp;KraneShares, the roots of the firm are really focused on investing in the growth segments of China&#8217;s economy and capital market. And&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;evolved into seeing trends in China as well as Asia and packaging that as exchange traded funds. But our flagship ETF is the largest China ETF in the United States, and&nbsp;to some degree that&#8217;s&nbsp;really what&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;known for.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I think the most important thing we do is provide a balanced, data-driven perspective on&nbsp;what&#8217;s&nbsp;happening in China. I think sometimes the media can be overtly negative, that&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;either China is about to collapse or&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;about to take over the world. And so as professional investors, we want to look at China through a balanced, data-driven lens, and we deliver that&nbsp;on a daily basis.&nbsp;We&#8217;re&nbsp;trying to highlight, if&nbsp;you&#8217;re&nbsp;an investor in&nbsp;the space,&nbsp;what&#8217;s&nbsp;really the most important thing that you should know about that&nbsp;maybe is&nbsp;not covered in traditional media just because&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;not apocalyptic or&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;not one of the two extremes.&nbsp;So&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;become quite popular, and I think&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;really driven by the trust we try to build with investors on helping them navigate&nbsp;what&#8217;s&nbsp;taking place in China&#8217;s economy, capital markets, and the geopolitical situation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-1\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Sounds great, and I will take the chance of having you today and&nbsp;let&#8217;s&nbsp;dive right into it and discuss a little bit about China.&nbsp;So&nbsp;I think the first question&nbsp;is that we see that Chinese equities have rebounded since January 2024. However, in quarter four of 2025 we already see&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;faded. So why do you think&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;happening?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-1\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah. I mean, just to your point, the Chinese market really bottomed in January of 2024, where we had this three-year bear market. And we saw that&nbsp;basically derivative-induced&nbsp;meltdown as the real bottom&nbsp;take&nbsp;place.&nbsp;And since then, the market has kind of grinded higher.&nbsp;It&#8217;s&nbsp;been volatile.&nbsp;It&#8217;s&nbsp;kind of two steps forward, one step back.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And what&nbsp;we&#8217;ve&nbsp;seen that&#8217;s&nbsp;kind of interesting&nbsp;is that you have the market really&nbsp;fade&nbsp;after the third quarter of last year. And I think some of that is driven by the fact that a lot of the investors coming back to China were very invested in growth stocks. At the same time, some of the economic data in China slowed a little bit. Some of the fundamentals, some of the quarterly results from the&nbsp;companies&nbsp;slowed a little bit. And at the same time, as you saw this pickup in AI and semiconductors, investor preference shifted to the proverbial picks and shovels of the AI trade.&nbsp;So&nbsp;companies like Samsung, SK Hynix in South Korea, and TSMC in Taiwan\u2014those three stocks really drove this incredible outperformance.&nbsp;Since the end of September 2025, the KOSPI is up almost 64%, the Taiwan stock market is up 30%, and yet these growth stocks for China are down almost 20%.&nbsp;So&nbsp;one, I would just say you had a little bit of a rotation. And why we think there can be a little bit of a rotation back is very simply that I&nbsp;don&#8217;t&nbsp;think investors are giving a lot of these Chinese companies\u2014like the&nbsp;Alibabas&nbsp;and&nbsp;Tencents\u2014the credit they deserve. These companies have done a lot in AI with large language models and cloud computing. And I think&nbsp;we&#8217;ll&nbsp;see that very shortly, as these companies are going to be providing their Q4 financial results.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So&nbsp;I think&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;one factor. The other factor is a little more nuanced, which is one&#8217;s definition of China. It&#8217;s important to recognize that there&#8217;s really two distinct&nbsp;opportunity sets. You have the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets, which are&nbsp;predominantly owned&nbsp;by investors in China. And then you have the Hong Kong market and U.S. ADRs that are&nbsp;predominantly owned&nbsp;by investors outside of China and by professional investors. If&nbsp;I&#8217;m&nbsp;benchmarked to MSCI China, I&nbsp;basically only&nbsp;care about offshore China. About 86% of MSCI China is Hong Kong and U.S. ADRs, and&nbsp;I&#8217;m&nbsp;really not&nbsp;that focused on the Shanghai and Shenzhen markets, which again are&nbsp;mainly owned&nbsp;by investors in China.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So&nbsp;you have these two Chinas. Because their investor bases are so different, they move differently. So even if we look at year-to-date&nbsp;performance,&nbsp;the Hang&nbsp;Seng is&nbsp;basically down&nbsp;a little bit. I mentioned these growth stocks in Hong Kong and the U.S. ADRs are down quite a bit more. But then if we look at Shanghai and Shenzhen, they&#8217;re actually&nbsp;up year&nbsp;to date.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So&nbsp;I think&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;just important&nbsp;for investors to recognize that these two distinct China opportunity sets move differently because the investor bases are so different. And really this offshore China is the definition of China for professional investors, which is why&nbsp;I think you&nbsp;saw this migration take place. China came back with these growth stocks, and then that money came out and funded these proverbial AI picks and shovels\u2014TSMC, SK Hynix, and Samsung. And now we think&nbsp;there&#8217;s&nbsp;a little bit of a shift coming back.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-2\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s&nbsp;great to know. Thank you for this information. I think&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;really useful&nbsp;for our listeners to know about the two Chinas and to follow them separately if they can. And another issue\u2014sorry, yes\u2014you would like to add something?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-2\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>No, thank you. Yeah, I mean, this is such a big part of what we try to do at&nbsp;KraneShares, this education. Because people will say, like, &#8220;Oh, China&#8217;s doing great,&#8221; or &#8220;China&#8217;s doing poorly.&#8221; But it really depends on what your definition of China is, because they are so different. They act so differently from one another.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-3\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Understood.&nbsp;That&#8217;s&nbsp;quite an insight. Thank you for that. If we talk about housing in China, it looks like it&nbsp;still remains&nbsp;an issue.&nbsp;We&#8217;ve&nbsp;seen a lot of news on that\u2014a lot of sensational news, like you mentioned in the beginning.&nbsp;So&nbsp;what is happening now?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-3\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah,&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;seeing a significant correction in housing prices in China. Some of that was driven by the government&#8217;s concern about overleveraged property developers, and&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;not turned into&nbsp;a financial crisis. At the same time, the fall in real estate prices has really&nbsp;weighed on&nbsp;households because historically two-thirds of urban household wealth is invested in housing.&nbsp;You&#8217;ve&nbsp;had this incredible urbanization take place in China over the last, call it, 40-plus years. And&nbsp;so&nbsp;investing in real estate was a one-way trade.&nbsp;That really stopped several years ago, driven by a number of government policies.&nbsp;The government needs&nbsp;technology more&nbsp;than they&nbsp;need&nbsp;more apartment buildings.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So&nbsp;the government&nbsp;arguably created&nbsp;a little bit of this downdraft, but&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;had an effect on&nbsp;consumer confidence.&nbsp;It&#8217;s had an effect on domestic consumption.&nbsp;And&nbsp;so&nbsp;I think as much as China&#8217;s economy\u2014remember, the GDP is at an all-time high. The size of China&#8217;s economy has never been larger. But&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;been in&nbsp;tepid growth.&nbsp;It&#8217;s&nbsp;been slow growth, healthier&nbsp;growth arguably.&nbsp;And I think government policies are looking to stabilize these prices.&nbsp;Certainly&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;finishing the big government policy meetings in China, the dual sessions. And I think again&nbsp;you&#8217;re&nbsp;seeing more emphasis on really trying to raise the&nbsp;expertise&nbsp;of China&#8217;s economy in terms of high-end manufacturing and technology like artificial intelligence and semiconductors.&nbsp;That&#8217;s&nbsp;really where&nbsp;there&#8217;s&nbsp;a lot more emphasis going forward rather than infrastructure like&nbsp;we&#8217;ve&nbsp;seen historically. So as investors, knowing&nbsp;we&#8217;ve&nbsp;got this new 15th five-year plan, we want to&nbsp;focus&nbsp;where the government&#8217;s focused. And&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;clearly on technology, self-reliance, and looking to raise domestic consumption.&nbsp;So&nbsp;we think these are two&nbsp;very positive&nbsp;opportunities for investors in the coming year of the horse.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-4\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s&nbsp;great,&nbsp;yeah. And if you would say, what potential catalysts do you see for the China market on its horizon? As you mentioned, technology and robotics, right? China is leading that sector.&nbsp;So&nbsp;all the automation technology, those are on the menu, right?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-4\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Yeah, 100%.&nbsp;I think we&nbsp;see the implementation of the 15th five-year plan now that the dual sessions have finished.&nbsp;It&#8217;s&nbsp;now up to these government agencies to implement that plan. And so just to your point,&nbsp;it&#8217;s&nbsp;about technology self-reliance, so that&#8217;s semiconductors.&nbsp;A lot of those companies are listed on the STAR&nbsp;Board&nbsp;part of the Shanghai Stock Exchange, companies like Moore&#8217;s Thread and Canon.&nbsp;So&nbsp;one, for us, we are investors in the STAR Board. At the same time, the rise in domestic consumption as well as AI, we really think&nbsp;benefits&nbsp;the big technology players like Alibaba, Tencent, Baidu, and JD.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think it&nbsp;benefits&nbsp;new players&nbsp;like&nbsp;Kuaishou&nbsp;and&nbsp;Bilibili.&nbsp;Certainly&nbsp;domestic consumption will&nbsp;benefit&nbsp;domestic tourism like Trip.com. So really, as investors,&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;quite constructive on the opportunity.&nbsp;I think we&nbsp;see positives.&nbsp;But I think the biggest thing investors should really be focused on is U.S.-China geopolitical relations. We know that the U.S. and China are having significant trade talks, and we have President Trump visiting China at the end of March. Then we know for President Trump and President Xi to meet,&nbsp;they&#8217;re&nbsp;going to want to announce a lot of big deals. So&nbsp;I think what we see is improving U.S.-China relations under President Trump with President Xi.&nbsp;There&#8217;s&nbsp;clearly a friendship,&nbsp;mutual&nbsp;respect, and then we think a potential trade truce could evolve into a bigger trade deal.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-5\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Thank you, Brendan.&nbsp;That&#8217;s&nbsp;great. And what other opportunities do you think investors should be on the lookout for in China today?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-brendan-ahern-nbsp-5\">Brendan Ahern&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, I think one of the&nbsp;really big&nbsp;opportunities is we know China is&nbsp;very good&nbsp;at high-end manufacturing. You see that with electric vehicles like BYD, battery companies like CATL. But&nbsp;certainly&nbsp;we think humanoid robotics is going to be&nbsp;a very big&nbsp;trend in the years to come.&nbsp;And we think this is part of an AI trade, that humanoid robots are&nbsp;basically like&nbsp;remote control cars.&nbsp;They&#8217;re&nbsp;like a toy, but when you embody them with artificial intelligence, this is where it becomes a very&nbsp;viable&nbsp;economic tool.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And we think China, many Chinese companies, are really at scale. Companies like&nbsp;UBTech&nbsp;are already publicly traded, but really one of the key players, Unitree, is expected to go public this year.&nbsp;And I really think that like Alibaba really put China Internet on the map,&nbsp;I really think investors&nbsp;globally are going to be shocked that this&nbsp;isn&#8217;t&nbsp;something where Tesla might be talking about humanoid robotics. Unitree&nbsp;is producing&nbsp;300 humanoid robots on a daily basis.&nbsp;And again, I think the real key here is&nbsp;the artificial&nbsp;intelligence. And&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;seeing other players in&nbsp;the space, Omi.&nbsp;There&#8217;s&nbsp;a whole host of companies that we envision as potential beneficiaries.&nbsp;This will be a global trade, which for us as investors means&nbsp;we&#8217;re&nbsp;focused on the global humanoid embodied intelligence opportunity. And we really think this is&nbsp;a very exciting&nbsp;extension, the proverbial tip of the spear of AI, this embodiment of physical AI.&nbsp;And Huawei thinks that by 2035, 90% of Chinese households could own a humanoid robot.&nbsp;So&nbsp;this is something&nbsp;that&#8217;s&nbsp;coming very quickly.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-elizaveta-nbsp-gridneva-nbsp-6\">Elizaveta&nbsp;Gridneva&nbsp;<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>That&#8217;s&nbsp;so exciting and interesting. Thank you for&nbsp;this&nbsp;insight. Thank you for joining us&nbsp;today, and&nbsp;subscribe everyone&nbsp;to our IBKR Podcast. Thank you.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>China\u2019s economy is pivoting toward automation and AI as policymakers push for greater innovation and self-reliance. Brendan Ahern of KraneShares joins IBKR&#8217;s Elizaveta Gridneva to discuss the rise of humanoid robotics and why embodied AI could become the country\u2019s next major growth engine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1701,"featured_media":240300,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10842,13857],"tags":[15018,21285,21289,21286,21287,21288,21292,11267,21290,21291,18205,19333,21294,21284,12806,20914,21295,20486,15605,21293],"contributors-categories":[13576,13610],"class_list":{"0":"post-240299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ibkr-podcasts","8":"category-podcasts","9":"tag-ai-investing","10":"tag-ai-robotics","11":"tag-alibaba-tencent-baidu","12":"tag-artificial-intelligence-china","13":"tag-automation-technology","14":"tag-brendan-ahern","15":"tag-byd-catl","16":"tag-china-economy","17":"tag-china-etfs","18":"tag-china-innovation","19":"tag-china-manufacturing","20":"tag-china-stock-market","21":"tag-china-tech-stocks","22":"tag-china-technology-sector","23":"tag-chinese-equities","24":"tag-embodied-ai","25":"tag-global-robotics-market","26":"tag-humanoid-robots","27":"tag-kraneshares","28":"tag-robotics-industry","29":"contributors-categories-interactive-brokers","30":"contributors-categories-kraneshares"},"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.9 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Are Humanoid Robots China\u2019s Next Economic Engine?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.interactivebrokers.com\/campus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240299\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Are Humanoid Robots China\u2019s Next Economic Engine? | IBKR Campus US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"China\u2019s economy is pivoting toward automation and AI as policymakers push for greater innovation and self-reliance. 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