Robotics

Simple AI closes another nine-figure round as its bodyless data engine moves from hotels toward the home

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On 4 September Simple AI announced a several-hundred-million-yuan Pre-A+ round, with investors including Kexi Capital, the intellectual-property fund under Shanghai Science and Technology, Jinpu Investment, Bozhou Industrial Investment, Shangcheng Capital, Qianrong Capital and returning shareholder Linear Capital. Simple AI’s service robot operating in a hotel setting. (Source: OFweek) Beijing Simple AI was founded in 2024 … Read more

Six years after walking away, OpenAI is back building robots, and this time it starts with the world model

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On 1 June 2026 Sam Altman posted on X: AI should help humans in the physical world; in the short term OpenAI is building robots that assist skilled workers constructing future infrastructure, and in the long term it imagines a personal robot for everyone. The post announced OpenAI Robotics, closing a six-year loop from disbanding … Read more

Noetix Robotics unveils Scalabot, its bet that the Scaling Law will rule physical-world robots

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On 8 September Noetix Robotics formally launched Scalabot, a general embodied-intelligence technology brand, together with HERON-World Model, the first world model under its HERON architecture. The move extends the company beyond robot bodies into full-stack capability that pairs body with embodied brain. Noetix Robotics unveils its Scalabot embodied-intelligence brand. (Source: Gasgoo) Scalabot fuses Scale and … Read more

Mech-Mind lists in Hong Kong with a blue-chip cornerstone roster, betting standard parts beat the embodied-AI impossible triangle

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On 1 September 2026, Mech-Mind Robotics, stock code 09615.HK, listed on the Hong Kong exchange. The headline attraction is a top-tier cornerstone roster led by Baillie Gifford, the century-old Scottish asset manager known for long-term bets on Tesla and Nvidia, with Tai Kang Life, Jane Street, BYD’s industrial arm Golden Link, Invus, Ghisallo, Ruihua and … Read more

Weifen Zhifei closes several-hundred-million yuan A2 round as capital flows into aerial embodied intelligence

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On 7 September, Gasgoo’s embodied-intelligence channel learned that Weifen Zhifei, a Hangzhou company, has closed an A2 round of several hundred million yuan, led by Puhua Capital, with Huihui Fund and the Yangtze River Delta Digital-Culture Fund following, and earlier backers Five YSource, Shenzhen Capital, Hongtai, Huaying, Huakong, Changshi and Baidu Ventures adding. Proceeds go … Read more

LeJu and Heiman team up on a general-purpose hand, chasing a universal fix for robots in factories

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Robots entering factories is the clearest main line of the embodied-AI industry this year. A factory owner, asked how robots perform, said that for an export business with fast-changing orders, the line must shift constantly. Robots handle fixed tasks, but change the product and much has to be rebuilt. That is the real problem after … Read more

AgiBot unveils the world’s first wheel-legged guide robot for 17 million visually impaired people in China

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On the morning of 4 September, at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, Yuanshan Zhixing, under the AgiBot Research Institute, launched Xiaoyuan, a smart agile guide dog. It is the world’s first wheel-legged guide robot. AgiBot’s Xiaoyuan is the world’s first wheel-legged guide robot. (Source: OFweek) It is not a robot that dances on … Read more

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

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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

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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

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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