In 2025, capital chased complete humanoid robots — a walking, talking demo unit could raise hundreds of millions. In 2026, the money has pivoted to a single component: the dexterous hand, what the industry calls the “last millimetre” of robot-world interaction. The numbers are stark. According to IT Juzi data cited by OFweek, China’s dexterous-hand … Read more
When NVIDIA unveiled its Isaac GR00T reference humanoid at GTC Taipei during ICRA 2026, the industry noted the obvious choices: a Unitree H2 Plus body, Jetson Thor onboard compute, and the open-source Isaac GR00T model as the brain. But the component that drew the sharpest questions was the one few had heard of: the hands. … Read more
A bionic robot developed by a Shanghai startup has ignited a fierce debate on overseas social media — not because it failed, but because it looked too human. At the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai on July 17, Shouxing Tech unveiled OriginF1: a desktop-scale bionic android with 26 degrees of freedom across … Read more
On June 24th, Shenzhen-based embodied-AI startup RoboScience (机器科学) hosted its official launch event in Shenzhen, unveiling Visics: a general-purpose embodied foundation model built around a novel architecture called VLOA (Vision-Language-Object-Action). The company’s founding team carries unusual credentials. CEO Tian Ye (田野) previously served as Apple’s AI Platform technical lead, where he built infrastructure described internally … Read more
China’s domestic DRAM leader Changxin Memory Technology made its debut on the Shanghai STAR Market on 27 July, delivering what may go down as one of the most explosive opening sessions in A-share history. The company priced its IPO at $8.66 per share. At the opening bell, the stock rocketed to $49.50 — an intra-day … Read more
Date Round Amount Key Investors Aug 13, 2019 Strategic Tens of millions RMB CAS Star, Tsinghua University Asset Management, Fortune Capital, Huakong Fund, Jiangmen VC, Turing Ventures Sep 14, 2021 Series A Hundreds of millions RMB Luster LightVision, Xinglian Capital (Z Fund), Beijing Dafan, Tongzhi Investment, Xingtang Tongzhi, Rongpin Investment Sep 26, 2022 Series B … Read more
Moonshot AI founder Yang Zhilin presenting Kimi Chat’s long-context model capabilities. After DeepSeek, another Chinese model has rattled the United States. On July 22, four things happened in a single day. Michael Kratsios, head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, publicly accused Moonshot AI on X of “large-scale distillation” of American … Read more
Figure Robotics’ F02 humanoid robot featuring a high-degree-of-freedom dexterous hand.Illustration: humanoid robot dexterous-hand durability concerns. (Source: Sohu IT) China’s humanoid robots are being tested by reality, and reality is winning. A manager at one robotics firm, whom we will call Wang Hao, told Chinese business outlet Yicai that the dexterous hand his company sources from … Read more
In the midst of a global humanoid robot boom, a sobering reminder of how hard the robotics business actually is: Vicarious Surgical, a US surgical robot startup that raised $300 million from investors including Bill Gates and Jerry Yang, has filed for bankruptcy. Founded in 2014 by two MIT graduates, Vicarious set out to build … Read more
On July 23, the International Mathematical Union awarded the Fields Medal — mathematics’ highest honor — to four mathematicians. Two of them, Deng Yu and Wang Hong, were born in China. It is the first time in the prize’s 90-year history that two Chinese-born mathematicians have won in the same year. Deng Yu, born in … Read more