BEIJING, Sept. 24 (Xinhua Silk Road) -- China's homegrown medical robot industry has entered the fast track toward commercialization, with growing investment and financing, accelerating technological advances, rising exports, expanding market scale and leading companies beginning to turn a profit.
Investment and financing activities in medical robots continue to lead the medical sector. According to a report jointly released by the National Innovation Center for Advanced Medical Devices, the Chinese Society of Biomedical Engineering and other institutions, private equity and venture capital (PE/VC) investment in China's life sciences sector rose 11.8 percent year on year to 89.27 billion yuan (about 12.5 billion U.S. dollars) in 2025.
Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular intervention, medical robotics and medical imaging have ranked among the top three most active sectors in terms of PE/VC transactions for six consecutive years, said the report. Among them, medical robotics recorded the fastest growth, with the number of deals up 48.8 percent year on year in 2025.
Data from the General Administration of Customs showed that China's exports of surgical robots reached 480 million yuan in the first half of 2026, up 330 percent year on year, while the number of export markets increased from 23 in the same period of 2025 to 49.
Meanwhile, homegrown surgical robot companies are continuously promoting technological advances. SuperX, a radiotherapy robotic accelerator developed by Beijing Lina Tech Medical Technology Co., Ltd., integrates robotic technology into radiotherapy, enabling sub-millimeter precision control and real-time tracking of tumor movement.
According to a report by consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, China's surgical robot market is expected to grow from 22.45 billion yuan in 2026 to 70.85 billion yuan in 2030, representing a compound annual growth rate of 33.3 percent, higher than the global average.
Backed by technological breakthroughs, policy support and strong clinical demand, China's homegrown surgical robots are expected to tap significant growth potential in both import substitution and global expansion.
Orthopedic surgical robots, in particular, are experiencing rapid growth. The report projects that China's orthopedic surgical robot market will expand from 800 million yuan in 2024 to 6.4 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 41.6 percent.
According to MedRobot, a third-party research institution, based on publicly available bidding results from public hospitals in the Chinese mainland, the rapid growth in surgical robot sales has boosted earnings of related companies.
In the first half of 2026, Hong Kong-listed Shenzhen Jingfeng Medical Technology Co., Ltd. (02675.HK) saw its revenue surge 113.8 percent year on year to 319 million yuan. Shanghai MicroPort MedBot (Group) Co., Ltd. (02252.HK) also recorded its first half-year profit in the same period.
Further signs of accelerated commercialization are emerging. According to MedRobot, public hospitals announced successful bids for 27 laparoscopic surgical robots in the first half of 2026, of which 17, or 63 percent, were homegrown brands, up sharply from 38 percent in the same period last year.
During the same period, public hospitals announced successful bids for 44 orthopedic surgical robots, of which 41, or more than 93 percent, were homegrown brands. Domestic companies including MicroPort MedBot, Jingfeng Medical, Harbin Sagebot Intelligent Medical Equipment Co., Ltd. and Beijing Surgerii Robotics Co., Ltd. saw their winning bids continue to rise.
In 2026, China's National Healthcare Security Administration issued the guidelines to clarify the pricing of surgical robot-related medical services and the corresponding medical insurance payment standards, helping remove barriers to the adoption of surgical robots by hospitals and unlock a key link in the commercialization of these products. (Edited by Li Xueqing with Xinhua Silk Road, lixueqing@xinhua.org)
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