AsianFin — AI² Robotics, a Chinese embodied intelligence robotics company, has completed a new Series A funding round, raising several hundred million yuan (roughly $40–50 million), according to sources familiar with the matter.
The round was led by Shenzhen Capital Group, which contributed more than 100 million yuan ($13.7 million). Existing investors, including Dunhong Asset and SDIC, increased their stakes, while the round also attracted industry capital from Bloomage Biotech and a major retail enterprise. The company noted that this is among the largest of seven multi-hundred-million-yuan fundraisings it has completed in the past six months.
The newly raised capital will be directed toward the continued development of AI² Robotics’ GOVLA large model and AlphaBot series robots, expansion of in-house production lines, and the company’s global market push.
Founded in early 2023, AI² Robotics specializes in a general-purpose embodied robot brain that integrates hardware and software to deliver intelligent robot products, solutions, and services across multiple industries.
CEO and founder Guo Yandong, who holds a PhD from Purdue University, previously worked on Microsoft’s core AI team and served as Chief Scientist and R&D executive at XPeng Motors and OPPO, leading AI development for hundreds of millions of smart devices. Guo launched AI² Robotics with a vision to develop robots capable of not just “running and jumping” but performing generalized intelligent manipulation tasks—a key differentiator in the next generation of humanoid robots.
Unlike most robotics companies, AI² Robotics has pursued a vertically integrated hardware-software strategy. Its AlphaBot robots have already been deployed in automotive manufacturing, competing with Tesla’s Optimus and securing international automaker orders. The company’s self-developed AI2R Brain underpins the robots, leveraging proprietary data, innovative model architectures, and proprietary training methods for large-scale computing efficiency.
Earlier this year, AI² Robotics unveiled GOVLA, the world’s first full-domain, full-body VLA (Vision-Language-Action) large model. GOVLA surpasses conventional robotic arm-focused models by offering superior perception, full-body control, and trajectory management, combining fast and slow system outputs in an end-to-end framework. The company also collaborated with Peking University to release the open-source FiS-VLA, which outperformed the international benchmark π0 (pi-zero) by 30% across three key evaluations.
AI² Robotics reports that its robots are already deployed at scale in sectors including industry, biotechnology, and public services. However, CEO Guo cautions that mass production is still developing, with some component yields limited and full-scale manufacturing not yet fully mature.
He anticipates it will take roughly 3 years for robots to achieve large-scale B2B applications, with the “iPhone moment” for humanoid robots expected in 5–7 years.
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