From a famous exit to a new bet
When well-known investor Zhu Xiaohu exited humanoid projects in bulk and turned to “Harbin Engineering lineage” firm Shihang Intelligence, deep-sea robotics shot back into the venture spotlight. But where Shihang pursues full-ocean-depth, full-freedom operation, another Harbin Engineering alumnus, DeepSea Intelligence, drills the industrial deep-sea track and runs a faster commercialisation.
Harbin Engineering University is the cradle of China’s ocean-equipment talent and many first-of-kind marine results. DeepSea Intelligence founder Ma Yiming is a top graduate of its ship and ocean-engineering programme. He was the first Chinese engineer at SMD, the world’s second-largest deep-sea robot supplier (since acquired by CRRC’s Zhuzhou Times), and the first to systematically import Western deep-sea robot core technology to China. He led and joined several world-class marine-robot projects, including the world’s first commercial deep-sea mining robot “Nautilus” and China’s first heavy-duty seabed work robot.
A RMB 500 million vote
Under Ma, DeepSea Intelligence began operating in 2023. On 13 August it announced a Series A above RMB 500 million from a heavyweight mix of market and state investors: Photosynthesis Venture, Fortune Capital, GGV, Fortune Link, CETC Investment and others, with existing backers Zhengxuan, Yunze, Yunshi and Gaojie adding large follow-ons. Earlier rounds brought Guangzhou Jinrong, Shenzhen Hi-Tech and Kejin, and BYD sits among its shareholders.
DeepSea Intelligence targets ocean oil and gas, subsea communications, offshore wind and deep-sea mining, and works on underwater embodied intelligence and multi-robot swarm coordination. Its product lines span suspended light underwater robots and heavy-duty seabed work robots, including the 6,000-metre work-class “Singularity”, work-class deep-sea robots, the suspended cable-burial “Phoenix”, Asia’s most powerful cable-burial “Taurus”, the “Auriga” heavy seabed robot, plus “Pisces” ballast-tank inspection, “Scorpio” hull cleaning, and “Sagittarius” deck inspection robots, a complete and broad system.
On software it released “Haiwei I”, the first marine general-robot control core, and in May 2026 launched SEAgent, the world’s first deep-sea robot task-decision large model. The software-hardware moat rests on an integrated mechanical, electrical, hydraulic, control and intelligent system. The firm leads in intellectual-property reserves in China’s deep-sea equipment field with over 500 IP items, industry certifications and standards, over 30 per cent high-value invention patents, and more than 400 industry standards covering all operation scenes.
Export and the DeepMatrix plan
With fully self-controlled heavy-duty deep-sea equipment, in under three years DeepSea Intelligence covered almost all of China’s offshore-wind seabed-work robot supply over the past one to two years and became China’s first exporter of commercial deep-sea robots, breaking a long Western monopoly. In 2025 it won a near USD 10 million order from a major subsea-cable contractor under a UAE telecom group, a record first export, completed with installation and sea trials in May. Months later it took a RMB 130 million “Phoenix 600” 3,000-metre suspended cable-burial order.
By July, DeepSea Intelligence had signed several hundred million renminbi of new robot contracts, with several hundred million more locked for signing in the next two months and about RMB 1 billion in potential orders in deep talks. Its business spans Britain, Egypt, the UAE and Australia across oil and gas, subsea comms and offshore wind. This year it launched the “DeepMatrix” plan for the world’s first fully autonomous seabed robot cluster, deploying intelligent robots permanently on the seabed for long-stay, all-weather autonomous work.
Per QYResearch, the global tethered underwater-robot market was about USD 2.132 billion in 2025 and is set to reach USD 3.143 billion by 2032, a 5.7 per cent compound rate. The deep-sea robot track is entering a golden age for domestic players.
Editor’s note: This is an adapted translation of the original OFweek Robotics report. It has been trimmed and restructured for readability for an international business audience. The full original (in Chinese) is at https://robot.ofweek.com/2026-08/ART-8321204-8120-30698415.html.