The Belt Doubao, ByteDance’s AI assistant, has started charging a commission. The same hotel room on the same settlement system costs an 8 per cent platform fee from the Douyin feed but 12 per cent when the order jumps from the Doubao chat box. The four-percentage-point gap has a single variable: the traffic came from an AI … Read more
On 12 August, Tianjin’s industry, development and science bureaus issued the Tianjin Smart Robot Industry Innovation and Development Action Plan for 2026 to 2028. By the end of 2028 the city targets core output above 20 billion yuan, average annual growth beyond 15 per cent and a Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei regional supply rate above 60 per cent. … Read more
Shenzhen News reported on 12 August that Ruqi’s Robotaxi fleet capacity has been connected to Tencent’s Travel Service WeChat mini-program. In zones including Guangzhou’s Nansha and Science City, users can now hail a Ruqi Robotaxi through the Tencent entry point. Ruqi Robotaxi is now bookable inside Tencent’s Travel Service mini-program (Source: Shenzhen News) Inside a … Read more
LeiPhone has learned that Liu Liyuan, a former core product lead at DJI and Anker, has started a venture in pet-companion robots and closed an angel round led by Yuanhe. The move takes a seasoned Shenzhen hardware operator into one of consumer robotics’ most emotionally sticky niches. A pet-companion robot, the new bet from ex-DJI … Read more
The first half of 2026 reshuffled the humanoid rankings. AgiBot shipped more than Unitree for the first time, taking the global lead. According to a 9 August report from Smart Analytics Global, a California research firm, global humanoid shipments reached about 19,100 units in the first half, nearly triple the 5,100 a year earlier. Full-year … Read more
Before Unitree had even started trading, the market had already priced its IPO at about 61 billion yuan. With 2025 revenue near 1.699 billion yuan and net profit around 278 million yuan, that implies a static price-to-earnings multiple of roughly 219 times. The natural first reaction: why would a maker of robot dogs and humanoids … Read more
Guangdong Huilun Technology, the embodied-AI subsidiary GAC Group spun out to industrialise humanoids, has closed a 100 million yuan funding round. The capital will fund vertical-model optimisation, expansion into automotive production-line and service scenarios, core-product iteration, team building and the scaled rollout of humanoid whole machines and core components. Huilun Robotics’ GoMate Mini wheel-leg humanoid … Read more
Beijing ModelBest Technology has registered for IPO tutoring with China’s securities regulator, making it one of the first edge large-language-model developers to test a new STAR Market listing route for AI companies without scale revenue. The filing, dated 12 August 2026, names CITIC Securities as sponsor; the company completed its joint-stock reform on 5 August, … Read more
Westlake Robotics has closed a nearly 100 million yuan Series A round led by Haiyuan Capital, its fourth raise in six months, taking total funding to 500 million yuan. The money backs development of a unified whole-body large model for humanoids and a talent base for embodied intelligence, pushing toward what the company calls an … Read more
IO-AI Tech, a robotics and embodied-intelligence data-infrastructure company, has closed a several-hundred-million-yuan funding round. The round was backed by Shunwei Capital, SongHe Capital and Shenzhen Capital Group, with a strategic investment from a leading robot original-equipment manufacturer. The company said the proceeds will go mainly into core product development, building a more diversified team and … Read more