A recent remark by an economist claiming that Unitree's research and development spending is lower than that of Muyuan Foods has sparked widespread discussion. The comparison between a star humanoid robot company and a traditional livestock farming leader carries strong viral appeal, while also touching on market doubts about the technological credentials of hard-tech enterprises.
Looking at absolute figures, the statement is not without basis. According to Unitree's prospectus, the company's cumulative R&D investment from 2023 to 2025 totaled 265 million yuan, with R&D expenses reaching 145 million yuan in 2025 alone. In contrast, Muyuan Foods' 2025 annual report shows R&D expenses of 1.648 billion yuan for that year, which is 11.4 times Unitree's annual figure.
However, when measured by R&D intensity as a percentage of revenue, the conclusion flips completely. In 2025, Unitree's R&D expense ratio stood at 8.53%, while Muyuan's was merely 1.14%, meaning Unitree's R&D intensity was 7.5 times higher. Both companies fully expense their R&D costs, making the accounting treatment comparable. The core difference stems from the vast gap in revenue scale — Muyuan generated 144.1 billion yuan in 2025 revenue, approximately 85 times that of Unitree.
The essence of comparing absolute R&D figures lies in applying the yardstick of a mature-cycle enterprise to an emerging growth company, which inherently mismatches the stages of industrial development. Muyuan operates in the hog farming sector, a mature industry where growth has long remained in single digits, with expansion driven by market share gains and refined cost control. Its R&D is typical of defensive precision: investments in pig breeding, nutritional formulations, disease prevention, and intelligent environmental controls, all aimed at marginal cost reduction and reinforcing cost moats. The payback period is short and quantifiable — 1.6 billion yuan in R&D corresponds to efficiency optimization for millions of hogs, a standard practice in mature manufacturing.
Unitree, by contrast, operates in the humanoid robot sector where global penetration remains below 1%, with the industry still in its embryonic stage of going from zero to one. Its R&D is frontier-exploratory in nature: focusing on motion control algorithms, high-performance actuators, and embodied intelligence systems, with the goal of defining product standards and opening up entirely new application scenarios. The technological return cycle is long and highly uncertain. The capital market's high valuation for Unitree prices in the growth option of a future trillion-yuan market, not current revenue or profits.
Evaluating an emerging tech company using the R&D absolute values of a mature enterprise is akin to comparing the R&D budgets of established automakers with those of startup EV companies — the numbers are comparable, but the business implications are entirely different.
What truly deserves market attention is never whether R&D spending surpasses that of a pig farming company, but rather the efficiency and long-term sustainability of Unitree's R&D investment. On one hand, with cumulative R&D of just 265 million yuan over three years, the company achieved the product leap from quadruped robots to humanoid robots and became the first in its sector to reach scale profitability — an efficiency that stands out globally amid widespread losses in the same track. Its pragmatic approach of "fast iteration with revenue feeding R&D" also represents a typical growth path for Chinese hard-tech enterprises.
On the other hand, the rapid decline in R&D expense ratio warrants caution. From 31.4% in 2023, it dropped to 17.8% in 2024, and further to 8.53% in 2025, with R&D growth trailing far behind revenue growth. The humanoid robot technology roadmap is far from settled, with core components and algorithm iterations still evolving rapidly. If future investment intensity fails to keep pace with industry momentum, short-term product advantages may not translate into long-term technological barriers.
Notably, Unitree's current IPO raised 4.2 billion yuan, of which 85% is earmarked specifically for R&D, with the largest single allocation of 2 billion yuan directed toward large model development. The cumulative R&D spending over the past three years was 265 million yuan, yet the first large model investment after the IPO is more than seven times that figure. This signals Unitree's transition from a hardware company to a software-hardware integrated platform, marking a qualitative leap in the scale of R&D investment.
At the end of the day, pig farming R&D is not inherently low-end, nor is robotics R&D naturally high-end. Evaluating Unitree's R&D should not stop at comparing absolute spending amounts, but rather focus on three core questions: Can R&D investment growth keep pace with industry iteration? How high is the proportion of core self-developed technology? Can technological advantages be consistently converted into commercial competitiveness?
Muyuan's cost moat built through sustained R&D represents the innovation value of mature manufacturing, while Unitree's technological breakthroughs achieved with limited resources embody the growth value of emerging industries. For the market, rather than indulging in the contrast effect of cross-industry comparisons, it is wiser to return to industrial fundamentals.