Recently, Tencent Robotics X Lab and Unitree Technology Co., Ltd. have officially unveiled a strategic partnership aimed at jointly advancing the deployment of robots across a wide array of scenarios, such as cultural tourism sites, shopping centers, and corporate exhibition halls.

The Unitree G1 robot has now assumed the role of a tour guide at the Digital Exhibition Center of the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, offering visitors guided tours and interactive explanations of Dunhuang's rich cultural heritage.

Dubbed "Xiao Mo," this AI-powered tour guide robot stands as the nation's first humanoid AI tour guide robot to integrate a large embodied AI model within a cultural heritage context.

The diverse group of project initiators underscores the interdisciplinary nature of this collaboration, with the Dunhuang Academy, Tencent, Unitree Technology, and the Shanghai Baoshan District Shangda General Intelligent Robotics Research Institute collectively driving this innovative industry-academia-research endeavor in the realm of cultural heritage digitization.

Thousands of kilometers away, at the global headquarters exhibition hall of Shanghai Guoling Law Firm, another Unitree G1 robot has taken on the mantle of an exhibition guide.

This robot's primary task is to elucidate Guoling's developmental history to visiting clients, showcasing the practical application prowess of Tencent's Tairos embodied large model in commercial settings.

This collaborative effort between Tencent and Unitree is grounded in a pivotal technology platform unveiled six months ago. In July 2025, Tencent Robotics X Lab and the Futian Lab jointly launched the Embodied AI Open Platform Tairos.

Nicknamed "Titanium Screw," this platform zeroes in on large embodied models and associated development tools, making them accessible to the robotics industry via SDKs (Software Development Kits) and cloud services.

Its core mission is to facilitate the seamless integration of large embodied model capabilities with robotic bodies, thereby completing the closed loop from complex task decomposition to precise execution.

Robotics X Lab will supply planning large models and multimodal perception models through SDKs and cloud services, with Unitree Technology and its ecosystem partners aiding in their deployment to mainstream robot models for system integration.

Zhang Zhengyou once drew an analogy to the human brain to elucidate Tairos's core technology: the planning large model functions akin to the left brain, empowering robots to comprehend intricate goals and dissect them into actionable steps; the perception large model mirrors the right brain, enabling robots to perceive their surroundings; and the perception-action joint large model resembles the cerebellum, bridging the gap between "seeing" and "doing."

The backdrop to this collaboration is Tencent's extensive research into the robotics industry. Since initiating the planning of Tairos at the end of last year, the Tencent team has visited over 60 robotics companies, uncovering that while many Chinese robotics firms excel in hardware, their software capabilities leave much to be desired.

Consequently, Tencent positions Tairos as a platform to equip robotics developers and application developers with vital software capabilities.

Pony Ma explicitly articulated at Tencent's annual report communication meeting that in the field of embodied AI, Tencent aspires to be a collaborative partner for all robotics manufacturers, rather than supplanting them by venturing into hardware production.

Zhang Zhengyou even candidly remarked that the robotics industry has yet to enter the "big brother era," as most robots are predominantly utilized for data collection, research, and guiding tours. He believes that the Tairos platform is indispensable for propelling the industry to this stage, with elderly care scenarios potentially leading the charge, although some contend that the industrial sector may witness earlier adoption.

In addition to the already implemented cultural heritage guiding and corporate exhibition hall scenarios, Tencent Cloud HAI, multi-network aggregation acceleration, and other products have also lent their support to the robot applications in this collaboration.

The multi-network aggregation acceleration capability effectively mitigates robot network latency in complex network environments, ensuring stable communication and real-time responsiveness with cloud systems, with reliability performance enhanced by up to 90%.

Looking ahead, Tencent Robotics X Lab and Unitree Technology will also jointly delve into the potential of robots in a broader spectrum of scenarios, including cultural tourism, industry, and commercial services.

References:

https://auto.gasgoo.com/news/202601/6I70441289C601.shtml

https://www.nbd.com.cn/articles/2025-07-29/3968246.html

https://www.geekpark.net/news/358924