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JD lays out 5-year robot procurement roadmap, sidelines humanoids for logistics operations - RobotHOT

JD lays out 5-year robot procurement roadmap, sidelines humanoids for logistics operations

At the JDDiscovery 2026 main forum, JD.com projected its five-year procurement targets on screen: 3 million robots, 1 million autonomous vehicles and 100,000 drones. The audience included more than 100 hardware manufacturers and dozens of investment firms, many expecting humanoid robots to feature on the list. None appeared. On exhibition zones flanking the stage, JD’s Wolf-series machines handled warehouse tasks: Dilang shuttled goods between racks, Canglang picked orders in narrow aisles, and Dulang completed campus deliveries. Not a single bipedal robot was on display. JD unveiled six new Wolf-series robot models at the event. The omission of humanoids was no oversight. With China’s largest fulfillment network, JD’s procurement blueprint signals a clear verdict: humanoid robots are not yet commercially viable...

China

JD.com to buy 3 mln robots, 1 mln unmanned vehicles in five-year logistics push

Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com said at its 2026 Global Technology Explorer Conference (JDD) in Beijing that it aims to build the world’s largest embodied robot application fleet, planning to procure 3 million robots, 1 million unmanned vehicles and 100,000 drones over five years to further advance unmanned logistics. The conference was held under the theme “JoyAI: Leap into the Physical World,” the company said.

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  • Shenzhen embodied AI startup KNOWIN raises Angel+++ round led by JD-linked fund

    Shenzhen-based consumer embodied AI company KNOWIN said it has completed an Angel+++ round worth hundreds of millions of yuan, led by a JD.com-linked fund, with Loyal Valley Capital, Nanshan Strategic Emerging Investment and Walden International participating. Proceeds will focus on expanding training data to improve GLOW's generalization across tasks, objects and home environments; deepening robot hardware R&D and advancing engineering validation and mass-production preparation for KNOWIN-X1; and recruiting senior embodied AI talent. KNOWIN has now completed five financing rounds: seed, Angel, Angel+, Angel++ and Angel+++. Its Angel++ round raised 500 million yuan, with Matrix Partners China and Redpoint China among investors. Founded in 2025, KNOWIN targets consumer home scenarios and aims to build embodied AI systems with physical bodies that can form a “perception-generation-execution-evolution” loop and interact continuously in real environments. Its folding dual-arm robot, KNOWIN-X1, is about 1.4 metres tall unfolded, 40 cm folded, weighs about 50 kg and has self-developed arms with a 6 kg payload.

  • China tactile robotics startup AGIMind Robotics raises tens of mln yuan in angel round

    Shenzhen-based tactile robotics startup AGIMind Robotics said it has raised tens of millions of yuan in an angel funding round, with investors including Lihe Capital, Hefei Industrial Investment and other institutional investors. The proceeds will be mainly used for production line construction, mass-production capacity optimization and R&D of tactile intelligent systems, the company said. Founded in 2025, AGIMind Robotics focuses on tactile sensing and fine manipulation skills for robots. It has launched the Lux visuotactile sensor series. Founder and CEO Zhang Yazhan holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Science and Technology of China and a PhD in robotics from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

  • Manus parent Butterfly Effect raises over $500 mln in record China agent-native funding

    Butterfly Effect, the parent of AI agent Manus, said it has completed a new funding round of more than $500 million, the largest ever raised by a China-based agent-native startup. The round was led by Boyu Capital and IDG Capital, with existing investors Tencent, HongShan and ZhenFund also participating. The funding news follows Manus's launch of Manus 2.0 and Cue, a multi-agent group chat app, on Sept. 29. It was the company's first major update since it formally resumed independent operations on Sept. 1. Manus 2.0 uses Cascade, its in-house agent framework. The framework allows user-created projects to stay lightweight from the outset and invoke relevant specialized capabilities only when tasks actually require them.

  • Ashish Kumar, Former Tesla AI Lead Launches Robotics Startup

    Ashish Kumar, who previously led Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot AI initiative, announced the founding of a new startup focused on developing non-humanoid robots. The venture is reportedly seeking to raise approximately $100 million in funding to innovate within the robotics industry.

  • Nvidia in talks to invest another $1 bln in humanoid robot startup Figure

    Nvidia is in talks to invest an additional $1 billion in humanoid robot company Figure, extending a strategy that has shifted the chipmaker from financial investor to core technology supplier to the startup. Nvidia previously joined Figure's Series C round and provides hardware support for training and deploying Figure's Helix AI model. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has called the partnership a "robot flywheel": models are trained on Nvidia's Vera Rubin chips, validated on its Isaac Sim simulation platform and ultimately deployed on Nvidia GPUs inside the robots. The closed loop is accelerating Nvidia's strategic push into physical AI.

  • Zhongda Leader plans up to 530 mln yuan A-share private placement for embodied intelligence, automation projects

    Zhongda Leader Intelligent Transmission Co Ltd disclosed a preliminary plan for a 2026 targeted private placement of A-shares, seeking to raise up to 530 million yuan, with proceeds mainly earmarked for two production projects—embodied intelligence joint modules and distributed intelligent actuator units for industrial automation—and an R&D center upgrade.

    The company said the private placement is aimed at capturing opportunities in emerging industries such as embodied intelligence and seizing the window for domestic substitution of core components.

  • ByteDance preparing AI model for real-time spatial video

    China's ByteDance is preparing to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of generating spatial video in real time, according to people familiar with the matter, entering the world-model field with potential uses in robots and autonomous systems and competing with Meta and Google parent Alphabet. The new model builds on ByteDance's existing cinematic video-generation model Seedance, the sources said. It is designed to let users create interactive virtual worlds for livestreaming, short dramas and games. The vision-based AI approach is viewed as critical to advances in robotics, gaming and self-driving cars. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are not public.

  • Amazon to invest over $100 mln in Indiana robotics manufacturing plant

    Amazon.com Inc said it plans to invest more than $100 million to build an advanced robotics manufacturing plant in Greenwood, Indiana, with production expected to begin in 2028. The facility will make warehouse robots and supporting automation equipment for Amazon's North American fulfillment network. The plant will integrate precision component machining, robotic welding, automated powder coating and final assembly, and will rely on AWS cloud and smart manufacturing systems, Amazon said. All completed robots and components produced there will be supplied to Amazon's North American fulfillment centers and robotics operations network.
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