Humanoid robots have generated years of hype, driven in large part by Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Optimus project and viral videos of Boston Dynamics’ Atlas machine. But beneath the buzz, the technology is making tangible progress. Robots are becoming more physically capable, and researchers increasingly believe that the AI methods powering large language models can teach complex machines to learn almost any task.
Those advances have drawn a wave of new competitors chasing profits in robotics, and many of the latest entrants are Chinese automakers. Their manufacturing scale and hardware expertise give them a distinct advantage as the industry pushes toward commercial deployment.
Earlier this week, Xpeng’s robotics division raised more than EUR 773 million at a post-money valuation exceeding EUR 5 billion. The round was led by IDG Capital, with participation from Gaorong Ventures, Tencent, and Alibaba. The company described it as the largest single-round private financing on record in China’s “embodied AI” sector, a term for AI systems built directly into physical machines.
Xpeng, BYD, and Chery Expand Their Robotics Ambitions
This month, AiMOGA, the robotics unit of Chery Automobile, reportedly started preparing for an IPO, while BYD introduced a humanoid robot named Xiao Di. Additional Chinese automakers, including Changan, GAC, Li Auto, SAIC, and Seres, are also developing humanoid machines.
Among them, Xpeng tracks Tesla’s initiatives most closely, according to Michael Dunne, CEO of the advisory firm Dunne Insights, which operates from San Diego and Singapore. “It’s the most focused on autonomy, it’s the first to commit in a big way to humanoid robots,” Dunne said. He noted that Xpeng founder He Xiaopeng, a tech billionaire, is known for adjusting quickly to market shifts. “He sees razor-thin profit in cars on the near horizon. Robots look much more promising.”
Xiaopeng and Xpeng co-president Brian Gu have backed the effort personally, together investing roughly EUR 86 million into the recent funding round. The company’s flagship product is Iron, a humanoid robot with a realistic human form designed for commercial use. Still, questions remain about whether Chinese automakers can match Tesla on the software side. “They have all the hardware to get the job done,” Dunne said. “Question is if they can catch Tesla on the AI side of the equation.”
American and Global Players Push Toward Commercial Deployment
Numerous other companies are pursuing large-scale commercial robotics, including Agility Robotics, Apptronik, and Figure. Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics is nearing that milestone. Hyundai plans to bring the Atlas humanoid to its Georgia factory this year and eventually assign the robots to tasks such as parts sequencing by 2028. The automaker, which partnered with Google’s DeepMind to accelerate Atlas development, is also opening a U.S. site this year called a Robot Metaplant Application Center, where robots will learn to map movements like lifts and turns.
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