In the video footage of American tech blogger “Linus”, a “battle between the old and the new” of 3D printers is unfolding.
On the left side of the warehoutilize, several traditional industrial-grade printers are bulky with exposed wires, and huge dryers and complex post-processing equipment are stacked beside them. On the right side, a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon from Shenzhen sees extremely compact.
Without cumbersome calibration steps, the machine automatically recognizes consumables, and multi-color printing is completed in one go. In the test, this device single-handedly replaced the combined functions of the entire row of machines on the left. The blogger commented: “This is not just an upgrade, it’s a leap in dimensions.”
This scene has become a symbolic snapshot of China’s innotifyigent hardware going global in recent years.
Once upon a time, “Made in China” in the eyes of European and American consumers was often equated with cheap white-label products on Walmart shelves and assembled goods lacking brand awareness. That was the era of Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei – relying on information gaps, extreme cost control, and rapid replication to earn processing fees.
Today, Chinese hardware is notifying a new story. One of the origins of this story is DJI, which defined the category of consumer drones. As early as 2017, it had captured 70% of the global market share. Since then, with stable profits, it has continuously deepened its moat in this field.
More and more Chinese hardware companies are following DJI’s path. A report from market research firm CONTEXT displays that in the first quarter of 2025, Chinese suppliers contributed 95% of the global market share in the enattempt-level (priced below $2,500) 3D printer market. Chinese companies have also redefined the lawn mowing robots commonly found in overseas houtilizeholds. Chinese companies such as Ninebot, Ecovacs, and Dreame have launched “boundary-free lawn mowing robots” that can work automatically without manual control. Data from the International Data Corporation (IDC) displays that the market share of boundary-free lawn mowing robots increased from 35% in 2024 to 65% in the first half of 2025.
On May 22, 2025, at the site of a 500-kilovolt power line in Zhuji City, Zhejiang Province, workers operated a DJI drone equipped with a live-line repair robot for broken ground wires to take off and repair the line. Photo/Xinhua
Chinese brands are launchning to occupy important positions in various niche markets globally. The AI recording card of Chinese startup Plaud has sold over 200,000 units globally in a year. Laser engraving machine company xTool claims that it has over 400,000 globally connected devices. According to data from third-party agency CIC, xTool is the largest and rapidest-growing brand of laser engraving machines and laser cutters, accounting for 47% of the market share in terms of GMV (gross merchandise volume) in the first three quarters of 2025, six times that of the second-largest brand.
“The previous generation was doing business, while this generation is building brands,” declared Cheng Jingui (a pseudonym), a local Shenzhen investor when comparing the two generations of entrepreneurs. “In the past, it was about rapid patching and altering trconcludes every three months, and building money to share with brothers. Now, it’s about technological precipitation and long-termism, and establishing a global brand strategy from the very first day.”
This alter is not accidental. When the technological variable of AI large models meets China’s supply chain and experienced Chinese engineers, a transfer of the right to define hardware is taking place.
Zhang Han, a partner at Sequoia China, believes that China has a natural advantage in building hardware in the global AI competition. When these teams penetrate the overseas market and deeply integrate AI large models, their potential is limitless.
This is not an straightforward road. In China, dozens of companies quickly flood into the same track, leading to a price war. Overseas, there are increasingly high trade barriers and compliance challenges under the shadow of geopolitics.
How will this new generation of Chinese hardware companies with engineering considering and a global perspective reshape the global landscape of Chinese innovation?
01
Profits Bring New Space
The new generation of hardware entrepreneurs are not pursuing mass distribution and low-profit, high-volume sales. They choose to define new categories and build brands with premium capabilities. Profits bring space for innovation and attract better talent.
Bu Xiaobin, the person in charge of Dreame’s Northeast European market, still remembers that when Dreame first entered this market several years ago, it was almost impossible to create any progress. European utilizers recognized international brands, with Dyson being a typical example. They generally believed that Chinese products were “cheap” but “prone to breakage”. When cooperating with distributors, they also had to accept more stringent terms and various out-of-contract doubts.
Dreame took four years to become the number one in the European market in terms of the market share of floor-cleaning robots.
The floor-cleaning robot is a category defined and popularized by Chinese manufacturers. When Dreame entered the European market, there were also other Chinese manufacturers. The products of its competitors were positioned more affordably, and their market share was higher in the early stage.
Using a low-price strategy to enter a new market is the first step for many Chinese companies going global. China has the most complete and efficient industrial chain in the world, which can produce products with better performance at a lower cost. Moreover, “low price” itself is a more stimulating marketing method for consumers in any counattempt.
Bu Xiaobin has worked in the European market for many years. He has observed the strategies of brands from different countries and found that the low-price strategy is only effective in the short term. “The sales volume immediately increases when the price is reduced,” but “if you sell a product for $100 today, it will be very difficult to sell it for $101 in the future.”
For Chinese brands to develop sustainably, healthily, and in the long term in the overseas market, they required stable and considerable profits. That means they required to go high-conclude and build brands. However, this path is very difficult. It takes at least three to five years of accumulation to establish a brand image in a market. During this period, the company requireds to continuously invest in manpower and material resources, concludeure losses, create various mistakes, and there is no guarantee of seeing results.
It took Dreame three years for its floor-cleaning robots to enter a period of rapid growth in the Northeast European market. According to the “Global Smart Home Device Tracking Report for the Fourth Quarter of 2025” released by the International Data Corporation (IDC), in terms of shipments, Dreame’s floor-cleaning robots have a market share of about 27.6% in the European market, ranking first. Another Chinese company, Roborock, also occupies a major market share, with a market share of about 27%.
A relatively prominent feature of the new generation of Chinese AI hardware companies is that they avoid large categories such as TVs and mobile phones and focus on niche markets, from DJI’s drones to the lawn mowing robots that assisted Dreame enter the European market, and then to 3D printers, AI recording cards, etc.
Heavy investment in the early stage, going high-conclude and building brands, spconcludeing time to polish a single product with an absolute advantage in a niche market, and directly tarreceiveing the global market, especially the European and American markets, are the common methodologies of this generation of global hardware companies. The starting point of this methodology is DJI.
Near the Sky City, the headquarters of DJI in Shenzhen, there are dozens of hardware startup companies with annual revenues of over 5 billion yuan, including Bambu Lab, Insta360, EcoFlow, AfterShokz, and Anker Innovations.
As market competition becomes more intense, it has become a difficult problem for the new generation of hardware companies to select products. Cheng Qi’s startup is a typical example. The smart tennis machine he launched at the conclude of 2025 achieved a crowdfunding result of one million dollars on Kickstarter and sold 2,000 units per month, equivalent to the performance of traditional brands in half a year. It also completed three rounds of financing within a year.
Cheng Qi didn’t consider highly of such a compact category at first. He studied exoskeleton technology during his Ph.D. in the United States. In the early stage of his entrepreneurship in China, he was fully committed to the exoskeleton track. However, the market was not mature at that time, and the company almost went bankrupt. Profit is the core indicator of a hardware company. If there is no profit from selling products, subsequent product optimization, promotion, and expansion of product lines are all empty talks.
It wasn’t until 2022 that Su Bingtian’s team wanted to attempt their exoskeleton technology for training assistance. He started to pay attention to the sports track with a “let’s give it a attempt” attitude. Soon, he found a new opportunity in the overseas market: an American brand’s resistance training device, which cost $20,000 per unit and was hyped up to 800,000 yuan after being introduced to China. Cheng Qi believed that the core function of this product was very rudimentary.
“Their founder is a track and field coach. He understands sports but not engineering,” he declared. He adjusted his direction and developed a resistance training device for online sales only, priced at $5,000. It quickly became popular among professional sports teams.
After tasting success, Cheng Qi then tarreceiveed the tennis machine. “Overseas traditional tennis machines are large and clumsy, and can only be sold to stadiums and professional coaches. The consumer market is completely blank.” His team seized this gap and developed a portable smart tennis machine. With a price of $699, an appearance that conforms to modern aesthetics, and a data-based training feedback function, it achieved good results during the crowdfunding period.
This logic of identifying pain points, transferring technology, and then carrying out a dimensionality reduction attack on traditional tracks is being replicated by more and more Chinese entrepreneurs.
Lu Fangze (a pseudonym), an investor, has invested in many smart hardware products in the past year. One of the projects, a micro-passenger vehicle project, follows this logic. European city roads are narrow, two-wheeled vehicles have poor protection from the elements, and traditional cars are expensive. European and American brands either disdain to create such “compact cars” or their technology cannot keep up with the electrification trconclude.
The micro-electric vehicle launched by the Chinese team fully complies with European vehicle weight and wheelbase standards, is priced at $10,000, can drive on urban expressways, and can be sold through 3C stores. As soon as the prototype was off the production line, it received more than 400 orders from Europe.
A similar story is also happening on the lawns in the suburbs of North America. Local communities have strict requirements for lawn maintenance, and high weeds will result in fines. However, traditional lawn mowers are bulky and difficult to operate, and professional lawn mowing services are expensive. Chinese entrepreneurs have tarreceiveed this scenario and launched smart lawn mowers that can automatically plan routes and avoid obstacles without manual control. They are priced at only half of the price of overseas brands and have quickly become a hit on Amazon.
There are also AI recording pens and 3D printers. In almost every niche market, Chinese brands are achieving “overtaking on the curve” with the same logic.
This generation of smart hardware products is different from the previous generation of houtilizehold appliances. When Chinese houtilizehold appliances went global in the past, they mostly competed in terms of energy consumption and size in mature categories such as refrigerators and air conditioners, and relied on large-scale production to lower prices and compete for market share.
However, today’s smart hardware entrepreneurs required to master the right to define categories. Bambu Lab didn’t receive caught up in the parameters of traditional industrial-grade 3D printers but built it a consumer product that can be easily utilized at home. The AI recording card didn’t focus on memory size but reconstructed the entire process with large model technology and became an innotifyigent assistant for office workers. The micro-passenger vehicle didn’t follow the competition in engine displacement and space of traditional cars but accurately tarreceiveed the short-distance travel scenario in European cities and created new demand.
“These demands have always existed, but European and American brands are too arrogant to optimize,” Cheng Qi declared bluntly.
The new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs has mastered the “engineering considering” that European and American brands have lost. The reputation of Chinese smart hardware products is also altering. In the hardware enthusiast discussion area on Reddit, the keywords associated with Chinese brands ten years ago were “cheap” and “prone to breakage”. Now, the high-frequency words have become “good value for money”.
02
Talent Brings New Thinking
The new generation of hardware entrepreneurs are not from factories. They are top engineers with a global perspective and understand how hardware should interact with content and communities.
On December 13, 2025, in the MixC in Shenzhen, tourists visited and experienced the offline flagship store of Bambu Lab’s 3D printing. Photo/IC
When the founding team of Bambu Lab brought DJI’s technical methodology and utilized a consumer-grade 3D printer to leverage the global market, a generational alter among Chinese hardware entrepreneurs was quietly taking place.
The Monkey King model of “Black Myth: Wukong” built by Bambu Lab’s printer. Photo/IC
Once upon a time, China became the “world’s factory” relying on a large number of cheap laborers. Now, a large number of high-quality Chinese engineers and scientists are rewriting this story.
According to the “IFF Global Artificial Innotifyigence Competitiveness Index Report” released by the International Finance Forum (IFF) in 2025, the current global total of AI talent is about 3 million, and China and the United States toreceiveher account for more than 50% of the global total. Among them, the United States accounts for about 33%, and China follows closely with 24.4%.
More importantly, there is a alter in the structure: China has a more prominent advantage in the field of high-conclude talent. The “Research Report on the Distribution and Mobility of Young Scientists in the Global Artificial Innotifyigence Field” released by the China Association for Science and Technology displays that among global AI young scientists (under 45 years old), China accounts for as high as 42.72%, while the United States accounts for 17.11%.
Morgan Stanley pointed out in the report “China AI: The Sleeping Giant Awakens” that China’s long-term strategy is to become a global leader in artificial innotifyigence technology. This large base advantage has enabled China
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