Alibaba heads investments in $ 100 million in Chinese Humanoid robot

Beijing – As the home robots are heated, the Chinese Humanoid Startup X Square Robot announced on Monday, providing about $ 100 million to the financing round with Alibaba Cloud.

According to the Chief Operational Director Jan, Jan Jan Tyan. She reported CNBC that the latest deal brings a total investment in X Square Robot to about $ 2 billion ($ 280 million).

Gangshan, formerly Sequoia Capital China, also participated in the last round of financing, along with MeituanLegendan star, legend capital and the capital Ince. The startup refused to comment on his assessment.

Venture capitalists rushed to pour money into humanoid robots to expect that their integration with generative artificial intelligence transforms the way the machines interact with people.

“Now we need robots to work and perform complex tasks autonomously,” Ian said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC. She noted that after decades, attempts to develop robots, which were heavily able to perform limited tasks, such as hiding objects, industry realized that AI requires that these machines expand their capabilities.

X Square Robot on Monday was also released What he calls “an open source foundation model for the embodied AI”, ” Named Wall-Ess. The open source code means that developers and the general public can access the main code and use it for free. Careful AI refers to the use of technologies that are integrated with equipment, such as robots or self -government.

The startup stated that this is the first open original AI model of this kind, dedicated to robotics – and expects that “robotics” will become a reality for five years. CNBC was unable to check this statement.

Ian admitted that AI for robots is still lagging behind achievements in a generative AI for chat or code generation, and said she expects the robot technology will not reach Chatgpt 3.5-type capabilities at least 12 months. Ian also noted that the AI ​​”embodied” has no very clear landmarks that can determine relative progress.

While the startup uses Nvidia John said John.

Chatgpt 3.5 was a breakthrough Openai based on Openai, launched in November 2022, which turned business expectations for AI potential. Chinese companies have not created a viable competitor before the output of the Deepseek R1 model with open source earlier this year. Analysts believe China goes the way To get global edge in AI appsincluding robot.

In addition to open source software, on Monday X Square Robot also launched its Robot Quanta X2, which, according to the launch, can attach the mop heads for 360-degree cleaning, and comes with hands capable of perceiving subtle changes in a step towards more functionality.

X Square Robot said it currently has no product to deliver the mass market, and that specific prices are determined by the case of the robot. The cost of the humanoid robot, according to the research firm Humanoid, is $ 80,000. Currently competitor Untree sells humanoid for $ 16,000Although it is unclear how advanced its functions are.

Ian said the robot company plans to start preparing for the original public proposal next year, but stated that the startup had not yet stopped at where the list will be. She said X Square Robot had already brought sales to schools, hotels and pension houses, and expected to grow next year.

She added that the startup was already talking to customers in Japan and Singapore. But in order for the robots to really enter the consumer market, their price should decrease to about $ 10,000 – mainly by reducing the cost of equipment – the achievement it expects perhaps in three years.