Humanoid robots are done selling the dream. Now they are fighting for position.

Roland Berger’s new report, Humanoid Robots 2026: The Convergence Moment of a New Market, reframes the debate. The question is no longer whether humanoids are a bubble. It is who claims a position first if the industry actually takes off. The trigger was not a flashy demo. It was three variables colliding: vision-language models, generative … Read more

MagicLab breaks ground on a 10,000-unit robot line as embodied AI enters mass production

The industry has spent two years caught between hype and weak deployment, with launches refreshing motion specs while most firms stayed at hundred-unit pilots. MagicLab argues 2026 is the pivot point where competition shifts from demo effects to hard delivery. Its physical-AI-native approach pairs a self-developed general model with modular products, and this year it … Read more

Dobot, the world’s top collaborative-robot maker, heads to ChiNext IPO

Dobot plans to raise 1.2 billion yuan, allocating 550 million to multi-legged robot R&D and industrialisation, 250 million to humanoid-robot technology, 100 million to marketing, and 300 million to working capital. With rival Jaka’s Sci-Tech Board IPO terminated in late 2025, Dobot stands to claim the title of A-share cobot first listing, a capstone on … Read more

LimX Dynamics closes a 200 million dollar Pre-IPO round as European capital buys in

The round drew top-tier global capital from China, Europe, the Middle East, North America and Southeast Asia, a spread the company frames as a vote of confidence in embodied AI’s long-term value. New investors include IDG Capital, Lens Technology, the pan-European industrial group G.G.G.Group, Redstone VC, Huashan Capital and the Hefei Binhu state industrial fund, … Read more

OakCreek Tech raises angel rounds as humanoid makers bet on the robot OS layer

OakCreek Tech, a Beijing startup building the software foundation for humanoid robots, has closed consecutive angel and angel-plus rounds. The angel round was led by Lingyi Ventures and Cloud Angel Fund, with Linge Ventures following; the angel-plus was strategically backed by three of China’s leading humanoid-robot body makers, Songyan Dynamics, Booster Robotics and Luming Robotics, … Read more

Unitree prices its IPO at 60.9 billion yuan, resetting humanoid-robot math

Unitree, the Hangzhou humanoid-robot maker, has set its IPO offer price at 150.80 yuan per share, valuing the company at 60.9 billion yuan (roughly 8.5 billion US dollars) and pulling in 1.9 billion yuan more than the shares on offer. Institutions pushed the price about 45 percent above the preliminary estimate, a repricing that lands … Read more

Fei-Fei Li and Yilun Du just co-signed a paper that skips the robot brain

The missing translation interface The paper’s core point is that today’s video models understand physics but cannot issue commands. A model fed the start of a kettle tilting will continue the scene plausibly, water pours into the cup, yet it has never done anything, and faced with a robotic arm told to move a cup … Read more

A 5 billion yuan bet on China’s humanoid ‘brain’ race

A price-to-sales multiple near 200 times The other side of the headline matters. Public figures put Qianxun’s 2026 revenue target at about 100m yuan on roughly 200 units. A 20bn yuan valuation against 100m yuan of sales is a price-to-sales ratio close to 200 times. A company just starting to earn revenue is being priced … Read more

PaXini crosses 3.5 billion yuan as tactile sensing becomes Physical AI’s data layer

PaXini says cumulative funding has crossed 3.5 billion yuan, refreshing the global ceiling for tactile-sensing financing, as the company repositions itself from sensor maker to the data infrastructure of the Physical AI era. The round assembles a ‘four-in-one’ capital matrix spanning national financial capital, three regional AI-industry funds, leading market institutions and global industry giants. … Read more

The StarWeave scientist who walked away to build a home robot

From a 20 billion yuan unicorn to a fresh start The founder is Xu Huazhe, formerly co-founder and chief scientist of StarWeave, the embodied-AI company whose valuation blew past 20 billion yuan with close to 3 billion yuan raised. Xu left at the peak to build something new. His record is rare even in this … Read more