Daily Humanoid Robotics and AI Wrap
Embodied Intelligence Pioneer Robotera Secures Nearly $140 Million in Series A+ Funding
Robotera, a leading company in the field of embodied intelligence, announced it has secured a substantial Series A+ financing round, totaling nearly RMB 1 billion (approximately USD 140 million). The funding round was led by Geely Capital, with strategic participation from BAIC Capital, and included backing from other global industrial leaders like Alibaba Group and Haier Capital.
The company, founded in August 2023, is dedicated to building general-purpose robots powered by embodied intelligence, which are systems designed to learn, adapt, and act through continuous interaction with the physical world. This new capital is earmarked to accelerate the iteration of Robotera’s various robotic platforms and enable the mass production and delivery of its full product portfolio. The portfolio includes full-size bipedal and wheeled humanoid robots, as well as dexterous robotic hands.
The strategic investment from automotive giants Geely Capital and BAIC Capital is expected to unlock significant synergies, particularly in industrial deployment, supply chain integration, and real-world application scenarios for the robots. Robotera’s full-size bipedal humanoid robot has previously demonstrated its athletic and environmental adaptability, showcasing world-record jumps and autonomous walking in snow. Furthermore, its dexterous hand, the XHAND 1, is noted for its fully direct-drive architecture optimized for reinforcement learning research in embodied intelligence.
- **Funding Amount:** Nearly RMB 1 billion (approx. $140 million USD).
- **Lead Investors:** Geely Capital and BAIC Capital.
- **Goal:** Accelerate product iteration and enable mass production of bipedal and wheeled humanoids.
UBTech Wins Major Humanoid Robot Contract for Chinese Border Crossings and Industrial Trials
UBTech Robotics, a Shenzhen-based company, has secured a significant multimillion-dollar contract—valued at RMB 264 million (approximately $37 million USD)—to supply its latest humanoid robots for a large-scale trial project. The contract was won for a humanoid robot data collection and testing center located near China’s border with Vietnam.
The project’s primary focus will be on testing practical, real-life applications for the humanoid robots, including tasks such as crowd guidance for travelers at national border ports, logistics, sentry inspections, commercial services, and facility inspections at large domestic steel, copper, and aluminum production bases. The main product to be deployed is the company’s latest industrial humanoid robot, the Walker S2. A key feature of the Walker S2 is its ability to autonomously change its own batteries, a capability that could enable uninterrupted, twenty-four-hour operation in industrial settings without human assistance.
The company is expected to begin delivery of the robots to the testing center in December. This large-scale deployment aligns with the Chinese government’s efforts to encourage domestic firms to develop humanoids, with the aim of leading the global robotics industry. Despite some industry warnings about the risk of overcapacity as production scales up without sufficient real-world orders, UBTech stated that its sales for the Walker series so far this year have exceeded 1.1 billion yuan, and the orders received far surpass the publicly announced number.
China Convenes ‘Dream Team’ to Draft National Humanoid Robot Standards
In a significant move to accelerate the commercialization and mass deployment of advanced robotics, China has drafted a “dream team” to lead the development of national standards for the humanoid robot sector. This concerted, government-led effort is designed to unify the nascent industry, a pattern also seen in other nations like South Korea, which formed the M.AX Alliance for foundational AI models for humanoids.
The new Standardisation Technical Committee includes prominent figures from both the private sector and academia. Notably, the founders of leading Chinese robotics companies, Unitree and AgiBot, have been tapped to lead the initiative. The committee’s oversight will cover cutting-edge technologies exemplified by robots such as the UBTECH Walker S2 and the AgiBot A2. The involvement of AgiBot is particularly relevant, as one of its robots recently set a Guinness World Record for the longest reported distance ever walked by a humanoid machine, completing a three-day, 100-kilometer trek.
The standardization effort extends beyond core robotics firms, drawing in representatives from the automotive sector, including XPeng and Chery Automobile, alongside scholars from top institutions like Tsinghua University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. This cross-industry and academic collaboration underscores the national strategy to build a robust foundation for integrating advanced AI and robotics into various industrial and commercial infrastructures.
Flexion Raises $50 Million to Develop the ‘Brain’ for Humanoid Robots
Flexion, a startup founded by former Nvidia researchers, has announced a $50 million Series A funding round to advance its mission of building the “brain” for humanoid and human-capable robots. The Zurich-based company’s core focus is on creating the AI foundation necessary to give humanoid robots the intelligence required to transform various industries and daily life.
The new capital, which brings the company’s total funding to over $57 million, will be used to further develop its AI foundation models and establish a new U.S. headquarters in the Bay Area. Investors in the Series A round included DST Global Partners, NVentures, Redalpine, Prosus Ventures, and Moonfire Ventures.
Industry investors highlighted that Flexion is tackling the “toughest and most defensible part of the stack”—the creation of a shared, capable brain for robots. The company’s approach emphasizes a simulation-first training method, which is viewed as a more scalable alternative to the teleoperations-heavy, manual human demonstration approaches currently favored by many competitors.
“Robotic foundation model developers will eventually need to heavily leverage simulation-based training, and the Flexion team is best suited to win with this approach.” – Sandeep Bakshi, Head of Europe investments for Prosus Ventures.
By focusing on generative AI and simulation-to-real-world transfer, Flexion aims to automate tasks involving complex reasoning, creativity, and writing, ultimately speeding up development cycles and making robotic platforms more versatile.
Xpeng Unveils ‘IRON’ Humanoid Robot with Lifelike Movement and Custom AI Chips
Chinese electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer Xpeng has unveiled a new humanoid robot, named “IRON,” which features remarkably smooth and lifelike movements. The demonstration of the robot’s fluid motion was so compelling that company representatives felt it necessary to slice the robot open on stage to prove that a human was not operating it from within.
IRON is designed to work alongside people, though the company noted its immediate applications are not for complex domestic tasks like folding laundry. The robot’s human-like fluidity is attributed to a flexible, humanlike spine, articulated joints, and artificial muscles, all powered by Xpeng’s custom artificial intelligence robotics architecture.
The machine boasts significant computing power, equipped with three custom AI chips that deliver a combined 2,250 trillion operations per second (TOPS). This level of computing power is vastly greater than many commercial processors and enables the robot to interpret visual inputs and respond physically without the need to first translate what it sees into language.
Key hardware specifications highlight the robot’s dexterity and articulation:
- **Degrees of Freedom (DOF):** 82 total degrees of freedom.
- **Hand Dexterity:** 22 degrees of freedom in each hand, allowing for intricate gestures and manipulation.
- **AI Power:** 2,250 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) from three custom AI chips.
Xpeng’s CEO, He Xiaopeng, indicated that IRON’s recognizably human appearance was intentional, even if slightly unsettling, as the company enters the fast-moving sector of general-purpose humanoid robotics alongside competitors like Tesla’s Optimus and 1X’s NEO.