The Belt 
In 1848, a shovel in San Francisco cost ten dollars before anyone had proved there was gold in the hills. The people who got rich first were selling the equipment. Deep Robotics is asking the public market to fund shovels on an industrial scale. The Hangzhou company, which built its reputation on industrial quadruped robots … Read more
The third-quarter results were published and the shares fell 12 per cent the same day, leaving the stock roughly half its May high. The revenue line, oddly, was excellent: up 58.6 per cent year on year. Net profit attributable to shareholders rose 14.5 per cent. The arithmetic between those two numbers is where the story … Read more
On 22 October, Bloomberg reported that Huawei Technologies has obtained a RMB 15 billion offshore syndicated loan, citing people familiar with the matter. The facility runs for seven years, is denominated in offshore renminbi, and was provided by six Chinese banks, including Bank of China, China Construction Bank and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China. … Read more
Robot rental prices have fallen, and they have fallen absurdly far. At the start of 2025, a fully serviced humanoid robot rented for RMB10,000 a day. By October 2026, a Unitree U2 bundled with a technician costs under RMB3,000 a day, a decline of roughly 70 per cent. On 9 October, UBtech signed a strategic … Read more
On 1 October Boston Dynamics published the dexterous hand design for its next-generation Atlas. Four fingers, 13 degrees of freedom, direct-drive joints, a single actuator type across the whole hand, and dense pressure tactile sensors across fingertips and palm. It can roll small objects between thumb and fingers, flip something inside its palm, and hold … Read more
Hongfuhan Technology, a Shenzhen-listed precision manufacturer, has approved a plan to build a robot precision metal components production base in Wuzhong district, Suzhou, Jiangsu province, at a total investment of about RMB1.007bn with a two-year construction period. The funding structure is explicit. RMB220m comes from the remaining proceeds of its initial public offering, including interest … Read more
CATL and Chery registered CATL Chery Wuhu New Energy Technology on 20 October, with registered capital of RMB 1 billion and both companies as shareholders, according to corporate registry data. It is the second battery manufacturing joint venture the two have set up in 2026. The first, Times Chery Hefei New Energy Technology, was registered … Read more
UBtech and Xiamen C and D signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Xiamen on 11 October to form a joint venture and build a Fujian headquarters for the company’s U-Science technology centre. The stated target is no fewer than 10,000 UBtech humanoid robots sold by 2030. The number is the least interesting part of the … Read more
Tesla’s Optimus programme is the most watched robot line in the world and the slowest. Output was a few dozen units a week in the second quarter of 2026 and reached a few hundred a week in August. Management’s target is 1,000 a week by year end against a long-run plan of 20,000 a week. … Read more
Humanoid robots are moving into factories and homes with one unresolved flaw: they run out of energy faster than the shift they are meant to cover. Full-size units typically manage two to four hours, and most packs hold less than 2 kilowatt-hours. A machine costing close to RMB 1 million can still need a socket … Read more