Zhongke Yuandongli, a Beijing agricultural-robot company recognised as a national-level ‘little giant’, has completed a hundreds-of-millions-yuan B2 financing round led by Chery Intelligent Technology, a subsidiary of Chery Holdings. The proceeds will fund research and development of new-energy smart agricultural machinery and embodied-AI farming robots, scale up deliveries, and accelerate overseas expansion.
Chery’s involvement is more than a cheque. As one of China’s largest automakers, it brings deep industrial assets: engineering validation, supply-chain scale, production quality control and a global distribution network. The two sides plan coordinated work across technology, verification, sourcing, manufacturing and international channels, a template for how auto-industry capacity is being repurposed for robotics.
A research pedigree with eight rounds behind it
The company was incubated by the Institute of Microelectronics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and carries a hardcore research lineage. Its chief scientist is Li Deyi, a prominent academician who pioneered the ‘driving brain’ concept for autonomous machines; the founder and chief executive, Han Wei, is a Tsinghua-trained senior engineer with years in agricultural-robot research. The team draws from Tsinghua and UC Berkeley.
Zhongke Yuandongli has now raised eight rounds, backed by a blend of state-linked vehicles, CICC Capital and first-tier venture firms. For investors watching Asian robotics capital, the throughline is that embodied AI is moving off the demo floor and into the field. When carmakers start funding machines that plant and harvest, the question stops being whether autonomy works and starts being who industrialises it first.
Read the original report (in Chinese)
*Translated and adapted from Ofweek Robotics (https://robot.ofweek.com/2026-08/ART-8321204-8120-30696736.html).*