Toyota Automated Logistics (TAL) has officially formed ahead of MODEX 2026, integrating Bastian Solutions, Vanderlande's warehousing business, and viastore.
DeepSeek plans to lead the seed round of Winverse AI, a robotics AI startup founded only months ago by a former Tencent scientist that has not yet made a public debut, using part of the proceeds from DeepSeek's more than $12 billion funding. People familiar with the matter said the round is in the tens of millions of dollars and has also received commitments from investors including Meituan's Long-Z Investments, with a post-money valuation of about $400 million. The deal has not been finalized, and details such as the valuation and investor participation may still change (source: Sina Finance).
UBTECH and FAW-Volkswagen are expanding their partnership to test humanoid robots for material handling and logistics applications in automotive manufacturing. Their collaboration has extended from vehicle inspection to factory logistics, advancing the evaluation of humanoid robots in real industrial environments. The next milestone is not another factory demonstration, but proving that these robots can perform useful work continuously and economically.
Amazon has deployed more than 1 million robots in its warehouses, supporting the delivery of tens of millions of same-day and next-day packages every day, and it plans to build new factories to expand the fleet and improve robot capabilities; according to its 2025 annual report, the company still has more than 1.5 million full-time and part-time human employees.
Pudu Robotics' PUDU BG1 Series won two ISSA awards in 2026: the Robotics Award at the ISSA ASIA AWARDS in South Korea and the People's Choice Award at the ISSA Excellence Awards in Australia, recognizing its innovation in AI-native commercial cleaning robots.
ROSCon China 2026 will hold the NVIDIA Physical AI Full-Stack Robotics Workshop on October 17 from 13:30 to 17:00, led on site by NVIDIA technical experts. It will cover the Isaac GR00T end-to-end architecture, Isaac Lab 3.0 perception reinforcement learning and whole-body control training, Physical AI Agent skill development, Jetson on-device model inference acceleration and memory optimization, and an industrial deployment case study from Techmach.
ROSCon China 2026 will be held October 16–18. The agenda has been announced. Tickets include 3 days of lunch, feature 50+ talks and 35 exhibitors, and offer the chance to connect with 500+ embodied intelligence companies. The comment with the most likes wins 4 consecutive nights at ALSO Hotel (check-in October 15, check-out October 19). The activity closes October 14 at 20:00; Shanghai-based users can redeem an equivalent-value benefit.
Space robotics company String Future completed three consecutive financing rounds—angel, Pre-A, and A—within four months from May to September 2026, raising a total of hundreds of millions of yuan. The A round was led by Alibaba and the China Mobile Chain Leader Fund, while the angel round was led by BlueRun Ventures, Hillhouse Venture Capital, and Binfu Capital.
Yuequan Bionics will appear at booth B3 in the Intelligent Outdoor Products Area of the Waterfront Park Experience Performance Zone at the 2026 China Outdoor Sports Industry Conference (Changping, Beijing), showcasing the Y-Hand M2 dexterous hand, the W-Bot 2.0 robot, and a desktop learning robot. At the event, the Y-Hand M2 will demonstrate the dexterous hand's reaction, recognition, and motion execution capabilities through a rock-paper-scissors interaction and a finger dance demonstration; the W-Bot 2.0 targets outdoor and industry scenarios, emphasizing stable and dexterous operation in real environments.
Wance will exhibit at the 26th China International Industry Fair from October 12 to 16 (National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), Booth 7.1H D010). On October 13, it will hold a strategic upgrade launch event, debuting its industrial safety vertical model and industrial safety collaboration hub, and expanding its sensor matrix with several new products. During the exhibition, it will also host a roundtable forum titled "Redefining the Boundaries and Compliance of Industrial Safety in the AI Era," hold a strategic signing, and release a white paper on overseas compliance.
On October 11, the "Intelligence Inspires Longgang · Embodied Navigation" Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Integration Forum Series (Second Session, Robotics) was held in Longgang, Shenzhen, jointly hosted by the Longgang District Talent Work Bureau, the Longgang District Artificial Intelligence (Robotics) Administration, the Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen Alumni Association, AIRS, and the Shenzhen Robotics Association, among others, with more than 150 participants.
Schaeffler and Qorix have entered a strategic partnership to jointly develop, integrate, and market software platform solutions for future vehicle architectures and intelligent machines. Both parties participate in the Eclipse S-CORE open-source ecosystem, with Qorix providing the Qorix Performance middleware, covering deterministic communication, end-to-end lifecycle management, and ISO 26262-compliant functional safety. The partnership initially targets the automotive industry, with plans to expand to robotics and industrial automation in the future; the first joint solutions will be deployed in customer projects.
Schaeffler and Qorix have formed a strategic partnership to jointly develop, integrate, and market software platform solutions for software-defined vehicles and intelligent machines, aiming to shorten development cycles and reduce integration costs. The collaboration is based on the Eclipse S-CORE open-source project, in which both parties participate; Qorix provides the ISO 26262-compliant Qorix Performance middleware, while Schaeffler provides the hardware platform and system integration.
The robotics exhibition (RS) at the 2026 CIIF covers nearly 56,000 square meters and brings together more than 400 domestic and international robotics companies, with over 300 new products unveiled in a concentrated showcase. The industry's focus is shifting from competition over standalone machine performance to software-hardware integration and ecosystem co-building.
The 3rd China Embodied Intelligence and Humanoid Robot Innovation Summit is scheduled for December 22-23, 2026. Topics include analyzing global industry trends, national top-level policies and the 15th Five-Year Plan, the direction of industry benefits for embodied humanoid robots over the next 3 years, and unified standards across the entire industry chain.
According to an exclusive Leiphone report, Orbbec decided internally in mid-September to cut its lawn-mower robot ODM business, with cumulative shipments of only a few thousand units, far below expectations. The report attributes this to three factors: new FCC rules raising the barrier to entry in North America, an overly crowded track, and major customers' shipment volumes being insufficient to support the ODM product line; the visual perception module product line for outdoor robots is unaffected, and the company is redirecting resources to embodied-intelligence data-collection devices.
🚀 Announcing more than 60 speakers! #CPInnovationExposition2026 brings together global tech leaders and well-known brand owners to showcase perspectives on AI, robotics, and future food innovation 📌 October 20-22, 2026 at True Digital Park, free to attend, limited seats! 📱 Register now https://cpinnoexpo2026.com/welcome
Home embodied intelligence robotics company Oula Wanxiang recently completed an angel+ round of hundreds of millions of yuan. This is its fourth funding round within half a year since its registration and establishment in March 2026. The round was jointly invested by new and existing shareholders including Chengyuanxiang Fund, Xinneng Venture Capital, Xizhou International, Topband Co., Ltd., and Hony Capital, with Zhiguan Capital serving as exclusive financial advisor.
Why it matters: Beyond the funding information, the interview explains the choice of form factor and a phased data strategy, which can serve as a reference for observing the trade-offs in early-stage home embodied companies' approaches.
Insta360 held the 2026 Bold Maker smart imaging challenge in Nanjing, where more than 220 makers completed prototype development over four days and three nights, and 15 teams reached the finals to compete for 300,000 yuan in cash and 200,000 yuan in prizes. Projects included a panoramic AI prompt system that identifies entrances and obstacles for visually impaired people, pet oral imaging capture, sign language recognition and voice output, and a panoramic underwater platform.
L4 autonomous driving company White Rhino has completed a $100 million Series C funding round led by Hidden Hill Capital, with participation from Xiangtan State-owned Assets, Shenzhen Capital Group, Hunan Caixin, South Korea's Woori Financial Group, Bozheng Capital and others. The funds will go toward L4 end-to-end technology, physical AI capability iteration and expansion of its urban operations network. The company said this round forms a composite capital structure of industry, government and finance. In 2026 it has launched the vehicle-grade autonomous vehicle RX and the R24 light-truck autonomous vehicle with a 24m³ cargo box, and introduced the FaaS fleet-as-a-service model.
SJ Integrated Solutions signed an MoU with SoftBank Robotics Singapore to jointly develop an AI-driven facility management solution, integrating SJ-IS's 24K platform and its in-development robot management platform with SoftBank's Smart Building X (SBX) platform to connect robot deployments to building systems such as elevators and access control.
The NEXTAGE dual-arm robot will give a food-handling demonstration at TOKYO PACK 2026 (October 14–16, Tokyo Big Sight East Hall 1, Booth 1R01, NASCO booth). The demo comes from the research group of Goal 3 "Foundational Robots for Intelligent Creation Based on Order of Embodied Interaction" of the JST Moonshot R&D Project in which Kawada Robotics participates, led by Associate Professor Takahiro Nozaki of Keio University.
Atomrobot has implemented an eye drop cartoning and tray-loading project using high-speed parallel robots paired with a dynamic tracking vision system, enabling tracking-based picking, tracking-based placement, and 90° oriented placement. The system is equipped with a single 6.1 kW parallel robot, achieves a stable capacity of 120 packs per minute and a repeat positioning accuracy of ±2 mm, replaces 2 operators, increases workstation efficiency by 100%, and has a 12-month return on investment period.
Reshape Automation released the Industrial AI Accuracy Index 2026, testing three models—GPT-6 Astra, Claude, and Gemini—on 100 common customer questions about industrial parts.
Tickets for ROSCon China 2026 are on sale; 999 yuan can be directly offset as cash toward purchasing Guyueju Origin series mobile robots, RDK series computing platforms, and Kudada bipedal embodied robots. The conference will be held October 16-18 at Midea's Global Innovation Park in Shanghai, featuring 30+ keynote speeches, ROS 2 development and embodied intelligence model training workshops, industry matchmaking, and open-source project roadshows. Offset details are subject to the event's final announcement.
Nils Pihl (@broodsugar) will deliver a keynote at the Humanoid Hub Conference. The internet made information addressable, but physical space has not yet gained anything like that. His keynote is about that missing layer: shared context that lets robots, AI, and humans reason about the same world.
AI sports hardware company PongBot has completed a Series B round of hundreds of millions of yuan, led by Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund, with Yuanhe PuHua and Pudong Venture Capital participating and BlueRun Ventures increasing its investment. The company's self-developed sports large model has been deployed in its smart ball machine hardware; its PACE series tennis ball-serving robot raised over $2.7 million in crowdfunding, and in May 2026 it launched the Aura all-in-one AI coaching robot, with cumulative crowdfunding exceeding $4 million. PongBot has become an official partner of the Australian Open and a supplier to Tennis Australia's National Tennis Academy, with more than 300,000 users worldwide, and its platform has accumulated over 1 million table tennis shot patterns and over 200,000 tennis shot patterns.
AI sports hardware company Pangbot has completed a Series B round of several hundred million yuan, led by Shanghai Guotou Xiandao Fund, with participation from Yuanhe PuHua, Pudong Venture Capital and others, and a follow-on investment from BlueRun Ventures. The funds will go toward R&D in AI sports large models, motion vision and training decision technology, and overseas market expansion.
Aubo Robotics will exhibit at Booth 7.1H-B252 at the National Exhibition and Convention Center during the 26th CIIF; the booth is ready and opens tomorrow.
Ultra Robotics has closed a $50 million Series A led by Framework Ventures with participation from Y Combinator, bringing its total funding to $62 million. An e-commerce fulfillment company says each Ultra robot handles 800 to 1,000 packages, with just 1 worker managing 6 robots, equivalent to one person overseeing 4,000 to 6,000 packages a day, which would not be possible without robots.
Dobot has teased a new product launch at booth F001, Hall 8.1, National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), on October 12 from 10:30–11:30, claiming it is the industry's fastest industrial collaborative robot at a speed of 790°/s. Only this speed figure and the exhibition time and location have been announced; the specific model, payload, degrees of freedom and other specifications have not yet been disclosed.
The New York State Office for the Aging (NYSOFA) has extended its partnership with Intuition Robotics to continue providing the ElliQ proactive AI companion device to older New Yorkers at risk of loneliness and social isolation. Since the program launched in 2022, hundreds of older adults have received ElliQ, and in 2025 alone more than 3,500 people applied.
On October 10, the Embodied Intelligent Robotics Industry College, jointly established by Leju Robotics and Shijiazhuang Engineering Vocational College, was unveiled in Shijiazhuang as Hebei's first embodied intelligence industry college. An industry mentor appointment ceremony was held at the same time. The industry college builds its curriculum around the main line of "body—cerebellum—brain—data—industrial application," is equipped with six major training spaces, and relies on China's first full-stack embodied intelligence textbook set to achieve "one course for one position," covering the entire embodied intelligence job chain.
IROS 2026 has come to a successful close! 🤖✨ Lumos NIX won over the audience with its engaging interactive performance, while Station Lite demonstrated advanced model capabilities operating in real-world scenarios—bringing embodied intelligence to life. We also showcased an integrated hardware and software system for real-world data collection and embodied AI development. Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who visited our booth, shared forward-looking ideas, and connected with us at IROS. See you next time! 👋
Shangqi Capital released a weekly roundup of ecosystem company updates: on October 9, ESWIN Computing listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code 01256.HK, issue price HK$1.55 per share), becoming Shangqi Capital's 40th listed company. LimX Dynamics and Kyland Technology on September 28 released the country's first humanoid robot equipped with a domestic electronic architecture, and Tsinghua University and Infinigence AI on September 24 open-sourced the embodied intelligence cloud-native management platform RLark.
Anno Robot's AI latte art coffee printing bar was invited to appear at the 2026 Asia-Pacific Media High-Level Forum (APMF), where it made latte art coffee on site for media guests from more than 40 countries and regions at the "Bay Eye" in Shenzhen. The device fully automates grinding, extraction, milk steaming, and latte art pouring in 90 seconds, is equipped with a high-precision robotic arm accurate to ±0.03 mm, supports 4–6 classic latte art patterns, and uses Alibaba's Qwen large model with Function Compute AIGC to generate patterns; guests can scan a code to order and upload an image to have it printed on the milk foam.
The Shenzhen Robotics Association and the Wafer Expo are co-hosting the "Bringing AI into the Physical World — Embodied Intelligence Application Technology Innovation Forum" on October 14 at the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center (Futian). Registration is open to companies across complete robot bodies, core components, computing chips, real-time control, and the supply chain ecosystem. The Shenzhen Robotics Association (SRA) was founded in September 2009 by the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It now has more than 900 members, whose combined output value exceeds 200 billion yuan.
STIER has recently won a bid for an intelligent grinding project for core engine components at a globally renowned automotive parts manufacturer. The company will build an AI-enabled flexible intelligent production line for rocker shaft machining that integrates robotic intelligent loading and unloading, automated ground-rail transport, and robotic precision grinding. The solution relies on the SeeV vision system, the NextBrain™ AI brain, and the PolishX flexible force control system to achieve dynamic perception, adaptive control, and closed-loop quality control, supporting automation upgrades and flexible production in the manufacturing of core components.
AVC monitoring shows that in August, online retail sales of companion robots reached 52.321 million yuan and retail volume reached 105,000 units, up 34.0% and 37.9% month-on-month respectively, with demand driven by the combined back-to-school season and Qixi Festival gift-giving.
Momenta listed on the Main Board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on July 8 (stock code: 06880.HK), with mass-produced vehicles equipped with its systems surpassing 1 million units, ranking first in the urban NOA third-party supplier market with a 65% share. D-Robotics completed a $400 million Series C round, cumulative shipments of its Sunrise series chips surpassed 8 million units, and its embodied intelligence customer coverage exceeded 50%. In addition, 14 portfolio companies including Zhongke Haoxin, Yezhixin, Xinghuan Ju'neng, Songshu Dongli, Yingmu Technology, Wuxian Yuhang, Yuanzi Juzhen, and Zhudong Technology announced new funding.