The hype surrounding humanoid robots is hardly new, fueled largely by Tesla’s Optimus and viral demo clips from Boston Dynamics’s Atlas. Beneath the buzz lies tangible technical progress: robot physical performance keeps improving, and LLM‑derived AI enables complex robots to learn diverse real‑world tasks. Driven by these advances, a wave of new entrants — notably Chinese automakers — are betting big on commercial profits from humanoid robots. Xpeng’s robotics division secured over $900 million in fresh funding, hitting a $6.3‑billion post‑money valuation. Backed by IDG Capital, Gaorong Ventures, Tencent and Alibaba, it marks China’s largest‑ever single financing round for embodied AI. Xpeng’s founders He Xiaopeng and Brian Gu also personally invested roughly $100 million in this round to back Iron,...
AGIBOT made its debut at the 2nd World Humanoid Robot Games, securing 18 gold, 16 silver and 12 bronze medals. With 46 medals in total, AGIBOT ranked first on both the gold medal table and the overall medal table. The World Humanoid Robot Games is an international competition designed to test humanoid robots across sports, dexterous manipulation and real-world scenario-based tasks. This year’s events ranged from athletics, martial arts and dance to hotel services, library operations, emergency response and industrial applications. AGIBOT’s medal wins spanned dexterous manipulation, scenario-based tasks and motion-control events, including titles in martial arts, dance and obstacle racing. Notably, AGIBOT’s competition lineup, including OmniHand, G2, A3 and X2, consists of robots already in mass production or deployed in...
RoboScience, a Chinese general-purpose embodied AI company, unveiled its first wheeled humanoid general-purpose robot REX G1 at the 2026 World Robot Conference (WRC) in Beijing, while claiming an industry first by publicly displaying real-time visual reasoning from its cloud-based world model — breaking the long-standing convention of keeping inference processes opaque in public demonstrations. The 22-degree-of-freedom REX G1, which features a dual-arm configuration with a 10 kg payload capacity and repeat positioning accuracy of ±0.1 mm, performed a “lighting conductor” show at the company’s booth. The robot’s operating height ranges from 0.1 to 2.0 meters, with an adjustable width between 540 and 640 mm. World model visualization breaks industry convention At the RoboScience booth, multiple dexterous hands of varying configurations...
Lumos Robotics on Thursday launched its new heavy-duty wheeled-arm embodied intelligence robot Lumos MOS2, targeting real-world industrial scenarios with a 50 kg dual-arm payload capacity and upgrades in mobility, perception, and control architecture. The 1.65-metre-tall robot, which occupies a floor space of roughly 0.5 square metres and requires a passage width of about 0.8 metres, features 22 degrees of freedom, including a two-degree-of-freedom head and an omnidirectional chassis. It is equipped with dual multi-line lidar on the chassis, dual wrist cameras, dual six-axis force sensors, and a binocular camera on the head, with optional top rear lidar and chest depth vision modules. “We are seeing embodied intelligence accelerate into industrial deployment,” said Yu Chao, founder and CEO of Lumos Robotics....
Global humanoid robot shipments reached approximately 19,100 units in the first half of 2026, more than tripling from 5,100 units a year earlier, according to data from U.S.-based market research firm Smart Analytics Global (SAG), with Shanghai-based AGIBOT overtaking Hangzhou-based Unitree to claim the top market share. AGIBOT shipped 8,400 units in the first half of the year, accounting for 44% of global shipments, while Unitree ranked second with 5,900 units, SAG said. Both Chinese companies substantially outsold major U.S. players including Tesla, Figure AI and Agility Robotics, underscoring the rapid development of China’s humanoid robotics industry. SAG, headquartered in California, projects global humanoid robot shipments will reach approximately 60,000 units this year and rise to 500,000 units by 2030....
AGIBOT, a global leader in embodied AI and robotics, today unveiled four new products at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference 2026 in Shanghai: the AGIBOT A3 Ultra, X2 Edu, G2 Max, OmniHand 3 Ultra-M. Together, the new products expand AGIBOT’s portfolio across full-size humanoid platforms, heavy-payload industrial task robots and direct-drive dexterous manipulation systems. At its 200-square-meter exhibition space at Booth H3-C101 in the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center, AGIBOT is presenting the three new products alongside its manipulation foundation models, industrial deployment cases and live robot demonstrations. Beyond the booth, more than 60 AGIBOT robots are operating across WAIC venues, providing visitor guidance, information services, demonstrations and other forms of on-site support. “The industry should no longer...
Water smart hardware brand MIRAVA raises nearly 50 mln yuan in angel round
MIRAVA, a water-surface smart consumer hardware brand under Shaanxi-based embodied intelligence company ORCAUBOAT, said it has raised nearly 50 million yuan in an angel round led by Jiuhe Venture Capital, with Chuxin Capital and Eversnow participating.
The proceeds will mainly fund mass production of smart yacht products, first customer deliveries and European market expansion.
MIRAVA focuses on the water consumer market and aims to integrate smart technology into water lifestyles. In September, it made its debut at the Cannes Yachting Festival, presenting its M800 to the European market for the first time.
Shenzhen ABROBOT raises tens of mln yuan in Series A+ round
Shenzhen ABROBOT Medical Robot Co., Ltd. said it has raised tens of millions of yuan in a Series A+ funding round led by Puhe Capital, with Longgang Financial Holdings participating.
Founded in June 2020 by Professor Guo Shuxiang, a foreign member of the Engineering Academy of Japan and an IEEE Fellow, and his team, ABROBOT focuses on the development and commercialization of vascular interventional surgical robots.
Its products cover neurological, coronary, peripheral and oncological interventions. The company's first-generation PANVIS-A cerebrovascular interventional surgical assistance system received a Class III registration certificate from China's National Medical Products Administration in August 2024.
ACE Robotics, PetroChina Shanghai Sales unit partner on embodied AI convenience store pilot
ACE Robotics and PetroChina Shanghai Sales Company have formed a strategic partnership to launch a pilot fully closed-loop embodied AI robot project in a gas station convenience store, the companies said.
The partners will combine PetroChina Shanghai Sales' digital platform, supply chain system and offline convenience store network with ACE Robotics' capabilities in the Kaiwu world model, robot hardware and embodied intelligence technology. They aim to explore a four-in-one embodied retail co-creation model—"scenarios set the tasks, platforms coordinate, models drive, and robots execute"—and build a warehouse-store integrated smart retail paradigm for real business scenarios.
Jiangte Electric to invest 100 mln yuan in robot startup Vita Dynamics
Jiangte Electric (002176.SZ) said it plans to invest 100 million yuan alongside affiliated investors in Vita Dynamics' Pre-A+++ funding round, with a total capital increase of 300 million yuan.
The affiliated investors will contribute 200 million yuan. The deal gives Vita Dynamics a pre-money valuation of 3 billion yuan. After the capital increase, Jiangte Electric and the affiliated investors are expected to hold 3.0303% and 6.0606%, respectively.
Jiangte also said it has started joint development of dexterous hand motors and key components with Vita Dynamics, and the products are planned to be supplied to third-party robot OEMs.
DeepSeek to lead funding in robotics AI startup Winverse AI
DeepSeek plans to lead a funding round of tens of millions of dollars in robotics AI company Winverse AI, people familiar with the matter said. Meituan's Longzhu Capital and others have also committed, valuing Winverse at about $400 million (2.7 billion yuan). The deal is not final and details could change.
If completed, it would be one of DeepSeek's largest startup investments since its 2023 founding. DeepSeek previously invested in Unitree Robotics, holding 0.2308%, or 933,399 shares, to co-develop embodied intelligence models.
Founded in 2026, Winverse focuses on robot AI models. Founder Hu Han earned a bachelor's degree from Tsinghua in 2008 and a PhD there in 2014. He was previously a Tencent Distinguished Scientist leading Hunyuan vision-language and embodied foundation model teams, and worked at Microsoft Research Asia and Baidu.
D-Robotics debuts at CIIF with full-stack AI for industrial robots
D-Robotics made its debut at the 26th China International Industry Fair (CIIF), which opened at the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai) on Oct. 12, showcasing full-stack AI capabilities for visual inspection, industrial data collection and industrial embodied intelligence.
The company presented its Sunrise intelligent computing chips, RDK robot developer kits and RoboGo software platform. For industrial customers, D-Robotics combines edge computing, supporting algorithms and cloud-based development tools.
NTU Singapore team wins IROS 2026 legged robot challenge with GENISOM AI M1
A team from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore won the IROS 2026 Legged Robot Challenge, using GENISOM AI's quadruped robot Tongchui M1, the event concluded at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh.
During the event, the M1 achieved fully autonomous operation throughout the entire course for the first time. It autonomously perceived the arena environment, dynamically planned its route to complete autonomous navigation, and after reaching the target position autonomously drove its robotic arm to carry out manipulation tasks. The whole process ran fully autonomously, without manual remote-control intervention.
Unitree Founder: Embodied AI's "ChatGPT Moment" Could Come Within One to Two Years
At the 2026 China International Industry Fair, Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree Robotics, said that with breakthroughs in models such as GPT-6, the tipping point for embodied intelligence—its "ChatGPT moment"—could arrive "in as soon as one or two years." He also predicted that next year's GPT-7 may "directly crack the embodied intelligence problem."
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