All items in the Robotics channel.
ChinaTechNews reports UBTech signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai Yongda Holding Group; its headline puts the number at 400 bionic humanoid robots and says it secures a commercial purchase order. The summary gives no value or delivery timing.
Organizers said more than 50 representatives from Chinese AI labs, robotics, automakers, quantum computing and energy startups attended, including delegates from Unitree and AgiBot.
Investors include Xienuo Investment, Yonghua Capital and Greenland Group.
ABB said on 5 November that China's foreign-investment security review office prohibited SoftBank's acquisition of its robotics business, signed at an enterprise value of about US$5.375 billion. Reports cite concern about data leaving China. It is the second publicly known AI-related foreign deal Beijing has blocked this year, after Meta's Manus purchase of over US$2 billion. ABB says talks continue.
A TechNode feature analyzes the reasons Meta picked Fourier as its humanoid-robot partner.
TechNode reports that robots completed the country's first large-scale mountain challenge on Mount Tai, using rough terrain to test motion control.
According to ITjuzi data, money is increasingly going to specialist developers of the robot "brain" rather than only to whole-robot makers.
Yicai reports that the Beijing company supplies devices and software that turn recordings of people working into robot training data. The round closed in Q3; valuation and use of funds were not disclosed.
AI Weekly reports that the dexterous hands bundled with Nvidia's two new humanoid reference platforms come from Chinese suppliers.
National Business Daily reports that the Beijing general-purpose embodied-AI startup was led by Amber Capital, Hongruida and Shanghai Semiconductor Industry Investment.
36Kr's tally shows that by 28 October, 45 companies in robotics, embodied AI and related supply chains had disclosed financing this month, with capital concentrating in three sub-sectors.
In a Reuters interview, the founder said a breakthrough comparable to OpenAI's GPT-3 in robotics could come around mid-2027.
12 / 26