A staff member demonstrates a Unitree R1 humanoid robot at a store in Beijing on Aug 1. TINGSHU WANG/REUTERS

　　Chinese humanoid robot maker Unitree Robotics opened subscriptions for its initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange's sci-tech innovation board, or STAR Market, on Monday, as the market witnessed a broader economic shift with future industries expected to power the country's next wave of economic growth.

　　President Xi Jinping, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said in an article published in June in the Qiushi Journal, a flagship magazine of the CPC Central Committee, that cultivating and developing future industries are of great significance for seizing the development initiative, developing new quality productive forces and improving people's quality of life.

　　Efforts should be made to vigorously foster first-class scientific, technological and high-tech enterprises that excel in core technologies and possess strong innovation capacities, Xi said.

　　For decades, China's economic expansion was powered largely by traditional industries, infrastructure investment and manufacturing scale. But the next wave of growth is increasingly expected to come from future industries, including embodied intelligence, future energy, quantum technology, brain-computer interfaces and 6G, which have been highlighted as key areas in China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30).

　　Since leading semiconductor firm ChangXin Memory Technologies debuted on the STAR Market in late July, a number of companies including artificial intelligence chip developer Enflame Technology, semiconductor manufacturer Can-Semi Technology, commercial rocket maker LandSpace and AI chip company Kunlunxin have been moving toward potential listings.