---
title: "China develops its own circular AI financing scheme, report finds"
url: https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-develops-its-own-circular-ai-financing-scheme-report-finds-eaff66
source_name: "The Decoder"
source_url: https://the-decoder.com/china-now-has-its-own-ai-circular-financing-scheme/
published: 2026-08-20T09:23:37.000Z
topics: ["chips", "policy"]
publisher: "Parallel Quant"
---

# China develops its own circular AI financing scheme, report finds

*2026-08-20 · Source: [The Decoder](https://the-decoder.com/china-now-has-its-own-ai-circular-financing-scheme/)*

A Financial Times report found much of the demand for Unitree Robotics' humanoid robots comes from state-backed training centers that buy the machines and then sell the resulting training data back to Unitree. Unitree's shares rose 460% in its Shanghai IPO, valuing the company at around $50 billion.

**Why it matters:** This echoes the circular-financing criticism leveled at Nvidia and other US AI companies, where investment flows in a loop that can inflate valuations without necessarily reflecting external demand. It suggests these financing structures are becoming a general feature of AI-adjacent industries globally, not a US-specific phenomenon, warranting similar scrutiny of China's robotics and AI valuations.

**Topics:** chips, policy

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Read the original: https://the-decoder.com/china-now-has-its-own-ai-circular-financing-scheme/
Canonical: https://www.parallelquant.com/posts/china-develops-its-own-circular-ai-financing-scheme-report-finds-eaff66
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