The Belt

Unitree’s Wang Xingxing sets a quantitative bar for robot adoption: two 80 per cent thresholds

by

On 19 August, Unitree listed on the STAR Market. At the post-listing dinner, founder Wang Xingxing first proposed the self-evolution of physical-AI robots, using foundation models to close the loop of paper search, code generation, simulation training, real-machine testing and evaluation feedback, moving robot R&D from heavy human dependence toward continuous self-iteration. Wang Xingxing set … Read more

Unitree upgrades its firefighting robot dog, pitching it as life-saving gear rather than a demo

by

On 31 August, Unitree released an upgraded firefighting emergency solution, with the slogan robots are made for people, on a mission to serve the public, through fire and water, duty bound. Unitree’s B2 firefighting robot dog carries a water cannon rated for 6 to 7 bar. (Source: OFweek) This is not Unitree’s first move into … Read more

Galbot’s humanoid robot plays live tennis against a Grand Slam champion, claiming a world first

by

On 22 August, at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, the second World Humanoid Robot Games opened and state television turned its cameras to a real tennis court. A humanoid robot faced incoming balls travelling above 50 km/h, judged the landing point within milliseconds, moved its feet, twisted its torso and swung. The ball … Read more

Zhejiang breaks ground on a digital factory set to build 5,000 smart-logistics robots a year

by

Qingtian Lituo Robotics, a unit of Mingguang Lituo Intelligent Technology, has broken ground on a project in Qingtian, Zhejiang. Planned across 40 mu, the site will be a digital factory for 5,000 smart-logistics robots a year, building AGV transport robots, smart-warehouse systems and software, aimed at the intelligent upgrade of Yangtze River Delta manufacturers. Completion … Read more

XTRONROBOT closes a tens-of-millions A1 round to put explosion-proof embodied robots into China’s hazardous industries

by

On 1 September, XTRONROBOT, a specialist in embodied intelligence for hazardous industrial settings, announced a tens-of-millions yuan A1 round. Investors include Qianhai Ark, Xihu Sci-Tech Venture Capital and Guangyang Co. The proceeds will fund its XBOT-AEGIS embodied system, multi-form explosion-proof robots and domestic and overseas market expansion. XTRONROBOT explosion-proof inspection robot for hazardous industrial sites. … Read more

Dyna-2 abandons the VLA mainstream for a world-action model and lifts robot success from 20 to 90 per cent

by

In August 2026 Dyna Robotics released Dyna-2, a robot foundation model pretrained on over 1 million hours of first-person human video, about 170 years of continuous waking experience. Across seven benchmarks the WAM architecture hit 1.55 times the success rate of the prior VLA model. High-precision manufacturing success rose from Dyna-1’s 20 per cent to … Read more

Liong Robotics takes a strategic round to cure embodied AI’s data hunger with gear worn by factory workers

by

Liong Robotics (Shenzhen) has closed a tens-of-millions yuan strategic round from Lifud, with Yunyue Capital as adviser. The company also signed a research partnership with the AI school of the Southern University of Science and Technology to work on embodied intelligence, spatial perception, world models and high-quality embodied data. Liong Robotics wearable data-capture suit for … Read more

Zhejiang county breaks ground on a 5,000-units-a-year smart logistics robot plant backed by national little giant Lite Smart

by

Qingtian Lituo Robotics recently broke ground on its project. The plan covers 40 mu, building a digital factory for 5,000 smart logistics robots a year, making AGV handling robots, smart warehouse systems and software, serving Yangtze delta manufacturers, due in 2027. Qingtian Lituo is a wholly owned unit of Lite Smart (Mingguang Lituo), founded in … Read more

Veteran AGV maker Jiateng closes a strategic round, betting its embodied-intelligence chassis on Toyota and Volkswagen lines

by

Jiateng Robotics, a long-established Chinese mobile-robot maker, has closed a tens-of-millions yuan strategic round after a 12-year gap, led by Hetero (Shenzhen HET) with Dahe Fund and Jinmu Capital following. Orient International Precision, a core shareholder since 2014, still holds about 19.84 per cent. The investor line is deliberately industrial: Hetero leads in control systems … Read more

Daimon Robotics ships a tactile world model and a second nine-figure round, pushing touch into the robot brain

by

Touch is becoming a base capability of the next generation of embodied intelligence. Over two years the field poured resources into bodies, large models, dexterous hands and vision. As those advanced, the bottleneck gathered at contact: a robot must not only find an object but sense force, friction, slip and deformation while gripping, plugging and … Read more