Chinese robot companies' AI fundraising jumped fivefold to $13 billion in the first half, Reuters reports
After teaching humanoid robots to run and flip, Chinese firms are racing U.S. startups to build the AI "brains" that let robots learn new jobs.
Chinese companies that build AI for robots raised 93.5 billion yuan, about $13 billion, in 322 deals in the first half of 2026, five times as much as a year earlier, Reuters reported Sunday, citing the data firm ITjuzi.
After years of showing off humanoid robots that run, dance and do backflips, Chinese firms are now spending heavily on the software that would make those machines useful in more jobs, Reuters said.
What 'embodied AI' means
The field is called embodied AI: software that lets a robot understand what is around it, learn an unfamiliar task and adjust without being programmed step by step for every job. Most factory robots today repeat one programmed motion. The goal is a robot that can be shown or told what to do, much as people now give instructions to chatbots like ChatGPT.
Chatbots learn from huge amounts of text on the internet. Robots need examples of physical work, such as gripping objects or handling flexible wires, and that data is scarce. Spirit AI, a Chinese startup, has hired about 1,000 people to record everyday and factory tasks, co-founder Gao Yang said. "The brain is indeed the weakest link in the complete robotics stack," he told Reuters. Ant Group's robot unit, Robbyant, said it trained a model on 160,000 hours of material. Others, like DexForce, train robots in computer simulations.
The race with U.S. companies
U.S. startups including Physical Intelligence, Skild AI and Generalist are building similar software, and Reuters said American companies lead in some advanced systems. U.S. developers also have easier access to powerful computer chips; U.S. export controls limit China's supply of advanced Nvidia chips, a problem Chinese developers say will grow.
Chinese startups X Square, Galaxea and Spirit AI are each valued at about $3 billion, according to company disclosures cited by Reuters. Some robots are already at work: battery maker CATL said Spirit AI robots connect flexible wires during battery testing at one of its plants with more than 99% success. Wang Xingxing, founder of Unitree, one of the world's largest humanoid robot makers, said OpenAI's GPT-7, if released next year, could give robotics its own "ChatGPT moment," which he defined as robots completing 80% of tasks in 80% of unfamiliar places from spoken instructions. Robotics consultant Georg Stieler was more cautious about when businesses can rely on such robots: "I would add years, not months."