The Belt 
At WRC 2026, Galaxea co-founder Gao Jiyang argued that the ultimate business model for embodied AI is selling “physical-world tokens”, the way OpenAI bills developers per text token today. In his telling, robot hardware eventually becomes a negative-margin vehicle whose only job is to put more endpoints into the real world to consume model tokens. … Read more
The 2026 World Robot Conference in Beijing’s Yizhuang district filled nearly 50,000 square metres with more than 300 robotics firms and over 3,000 exhibits. Jessica Huang, daughter of Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, was among the visitors walking the booths. Behind the crowd, the mood shifted. Flashy backflips and dance routines gave way to robots doing actual … Read more
Xiaomi’s next-generation humanoid robot has leaked via the National Business Daily: about 1.70 metres tall, 66 kilograms, with 66 degrees of freedom, half of them in the hands. The machine is set for its first public showing at the 2026 World Robot Conference, which opens on 19 August, before travelling to Europe. Lei Jun has … Read more
BridgeDP Robotics, a Shenzhen general-purpose robot operating-system developer, has closed a Pre-A-plus-plus round led by China Mobile’s Chain-Length Fund, with existing backers Fosun Capital and Shenzhen Capital Group following on, Zhidx reported. The round is described as a nine-figure RMB sum. Founder Shang Yangxing studied at Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen under … Read more
During the 2026 World Robot Conference, UBTECH (9880.HK) and Basic Semiconductor (9971.HK) signed a strategic cooperation agreement, Gasgoo’s embodied-intelligence desk reported. The two Shenzhen-linked firms will combine UBTECH’s strength in humanoid robots with Basic Semi’s silicon-carbide power-device know-how. The deal targets three areas. First, jointly develop low-power, long-endurance embodied robots by applying silicon-carbide power devices … Read more
On 20 August, Nvidia denied a Reuters report that it planned to launch a customised “Language Processing Unit” (LPU) for Chinese customers before the end of the year. “The report on Nvidia’s LPU is wrong. We do not sell an LPU in the China market, nor do we have an LPU product roadmap for China,” … Read more
A quiet migration is reshaping Chinese robotics. By one tally, nearly 40 core autonomous-driving executives and technical leads have moved into embodied AI. The names leaving Li Auto alone lost eight senior people in half a year, most to robotics. Former autonomous-driving president Lang Xianpeng founded Kunlun Robotics, raising three rounds in 90 days to … Read more
On 20 August local time, Uber said its platform had gone live in Dubai with Baidu’s Apollo Go driverless vehicles, operated by UAE firm New Horizon Luxury Transport. Riders choosing UberX or Uber Comfort can now be matched to an Apollo Go, and an ‘autonomous’ option in the app raises the odds. Service starts in … Read more
On 20 August, Harmony IntelliDrive launched its first boxy hardcore SUV, the Xiangjie G9, with prices from 429,800 to 549,800 yuan. Within one hour it took 3,100 pre-orders. Richard Yu called it able to replace a holiday rental and a camper van. The G9 comes in Max+, Ultra, and Ultra+ trims, in five- or six-seat … Read more
At the 2026 World Robot Conference, JD laid out a robotics service strategy: over five years it will build an after-sales repair network across more than 100 countries and create more than 100,000 robot-repair engineer jobs. JD plans ten training and certification centres in China and aims to train over 100,000 repair engineers covering robots … Read more