A humanoid played real tennis against a Grand Slam champion, and the breakthrough was the data

On 22 August at the Ice Ribbon arena in Beijing, as the second World Humanoid Robot Games opened, CCTV cut to a real tennis court. A humanoid stood on the baseline. A ball came at more than 50 kilometres per hour. In milliseconds it judged the landing point, moved its feet, turned its body and … Read more

Li Auto’s former AI chief raises again for home robots seven months after founding

Hangzhou-based Xieyue Intelligent, or Leap Intelligence, has closed a nine-figure angel-plus round, with Linear Capital, Junshan Capital, Hongyi Capital and Hidden Hill Capital participating. The money will fund embodied foundation-model training, compute and data infrastructure, team expansion, and home-robot hardware development with scenario validation. Leap Intelligence is building a home robot on an embodied foundation … Read more

OpenAI is shopping a $1.2 trillion private round while its IPO slips to 2027

OpenAI is in talks with investors over a new private round at a valuation of about USD 1.2 trillion. Whether that number holds depends on whether its initial public offering, now pushed to 2027, can clear the same level. The proposed valuation would add roughly USD 350 billion to the USD 852 billion post-money mark … Read more

Guangdong sets RMB 200 billion cross-border data target as it builds a Greater Bay data zone

On 15 September, Guangdong’s Digital Government and Data Bureau released the “Guangdong Greater Bay Area Data Special Zone Work Plan”, targeting a cross-border data industry above RMB 200 billion by the end of 2028, with related value-add in manufacturing and services exceeding RMB 1 trillion. Bordering Hong Kong and Macao, Guangdong is a national digital-economy … Read more

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan for smart EVs sets a 2030 finish line and a hard list of numbers

China’s intelligent connected new-energy vehicle industry now has a specific plan for the 15th Five-Year Plan period. MIIT and eight other departments issued the plan for the industry’s development, a document that sets the sector’s direction through 2030. Nine departments issued the 15th Five-Year plan for intelligent connected NEVs. (Source: Chedongxi) The plan calls intelligent … Read more

Moonshot AI files for a Hong Kong listing at a US$50 billion valuation after raising US$7.9 billion

Moonshot AI has reportedly filed an A1 document confidentially with the Hong Kong exchange and begun its IPO process, raising a Pre-IPO round at a US$50 billion pre-money valuation. The company declined to comment. An AI-generated illustration of Moonshot AI’s Kimi assistant and large-model business. (Source: Sohu IT) It is not alone. StepFun is said … Read more

Moxin Tech, led by a Zhejiang University student born in 2000, nears a 1 billion yuan round

Moxin Tech, a four-dimensional world-model start-up founded by a Zhejiang University doctoral student born in 2000, is about to close a new financing round of around 1 billion yuan that would lift its valuation to nearly 10 billion yuan. It would be the firm’s fifth raise this year and its second in a month, after … Read more

INMO closes a near 1 billion yuan C round and opens IPO preparations

INMO, the global smart-glasses brand, has closed its C3 round, led by the Sichuan Zhenxing Sci-Tech Innovation Fund with Jing’an Capital, Shibei Hi-Tech, Guangzhou Industrial Investment and several Sichuan government funds following. Combined with its earlier C1 and C2 rounds, the C series totals nearly 1 billion yuan, and the company says it has formally … Read more

China’s AI start-ups raised over RMB 300 billion in the first half of 2026

In the first half of 2026, China’s artificial-intelligence start-ups raised more than 300 billion yuan, a sum that already exceeds the sector’s full-year 2025 total in just six months, according to IT Juzi. The figure spans embodied intelligence, chips and every ticket above and below the 100 million yuan line, and marks a clear acceleration … Read more

DeepSeek prepares a STAR Market IPO with a reported 500 billion yuan valuation

DeepSeek, one of the so-called Hangzhou Six Little Dragons, is preparing to list on the STAR Market and has engaged CITIC Securities to lead the IPO work, according to the latest reports. In 2026 DeepSeek reversed its long-standing ‘no external funding’ stance. Since its first external round in April, it has run several raises, with … Read more