Produced by | Bullet Finance

Art Design | Qianqian

Reviewed by | Songwen

On June 1, Meituan disclosed its Q1 2026 financial results.

Data showed that in the first quarter, Meituan achieved RMB 91 billion in revenue, up 5.6% year-on-year, while operating losses narrowed significantly from RMB 16.1 billion in the previous quarter to RMB 6.5 billion. Meanwhile, Meituan continued to advance its 'Retail + Tech' strategy, with R&D investment increasing by 22% year-on-year to RMB 7 billion, accounting for 7.7% of total revenue. Meituan CEO Wang Xing stated, 'We will continue to increase AI investments and continuously iterate AI Agent and large model capabilities.'

On the same day Meituan released its Q1 results, another market development emerged: Unitree Robotics' IPO application on the STAR Market was approved, positioning it to become the 'first embodied intelligence stock.' While the market focused on its RMB 42 billion valuation, a key detail drew attention: Meituan, with a combined 9.65% stake, became Unitree's largest external shareholder.

In fact, the investment in Unitree Robotics is just the tip of the iceberg in Meituan's technology landscape. A review reveals that its investments already span AI large models, embodied intelligence, autonomous driving, and other sectors. Behind nearly every well-known hard-tech unicorn—such as Zhipu AI, Moonshot AI, Moore Threads, GalaxyCore General Robotics, and Li Auto—stands Meituan.

More critically, Meituan is also systematically advancing in-house R&D: the trillion-parameter domestic large model LongCat, a low-altitude drone network with over 900,000 cumulative deliveries, and AI assistant 'Smart Shopkeeper' serving over 700,000 merchants. A complete technology company ecosystem has taken shape.

Thus, amid the trend of AI shifting from 'selling shovels' to real-world applications, Meituan is positioning itself as a gateway for AI integration.

1. How Extensive Is the Layout?

If a yardstick is needed to measure the depth of Meituan's technology landscape, Unitree Robotics is perhaps one of the best indicators.

According to its prospectus, Unitree Robotics, founded in August 2016 and headquartered in Hangzhou, Zhejiang, achieved RMB 1.699 billion in revenue and RMB 591 million in net profit (after non-recurring items) in 2025, ranking first globally with over 5,500 humanoid robot shipments. Its STAR Market approval signals the imminent arrival of the 'first embodied intelligence stock.'

Meituan's connection with Unitree Robotics began long before the industry's boom.

(Image / Unitree Robotics official website)

During Unitree's Series B2 funding round, while most institutions hesitated, Meituan joined as the lead investor. By Series B3, Meituan continued to double down, following through to become the largest external shareholder with a combined 9.65% stake. By 2025, when other major players entered, Unitree's valuation had soared to RMB 12 billion, its robots had appeared on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and its IPO path was clear. While other firms invested to avoid missing out, Meituan was the one that took bold early bets.

In reality, Unitree Robotics is just the visible tip of the iceberg.

In embodied intelligence, Meituan has invested in at least 16 companies, with 10 becoming unicorns. For GalaxyCore General Robotics, Meituan entered at the angel round; for star startups like Xinghaitu and Zibianliang, it joined at Series A.

In the chip computing power sector, it invested in Moore Threads and Maxel Technology—two of the 'Four Little Dragons of Domestic GPUs'—as well as state-backed Unisoc.

For AI large models, Meituan invested early in Zhipu AI and led Moonshot AI's Series A1 round.

In autonomous driving, it is Li Auto's largest external shareholder and has backed Hesai Technology and 9D Robotics.

(Image / Li Auto official website)

In AI smart hardware, companies like QuickMaker and Qiyu Innovation are also on its list.

Visibly, Meituan has achieved coverage across multiple hard-tech sectors, far beyond the traditional boundaries of a local services platform.

Data shows that Meituan has invested in over 28 unicorn tech companies to date, with 7 successfully listed and others like Unitree Robotics and Unisoc in IPO filing stages.

Over several years, Meituan has incorporated China's core hard-tech assets into its ecosystem, accompanying numerous emerging leaders from inception to maturity.

2. Why Meituan?

However, a pointed question arises: How can a local services platform that started with food delivery invest in half of China's AI sector? Do hard-tech unicorns valued at billions truly lack Meituan's capital?

The answer clearly extends beyond money.

Analyzing Meituan's investment logic reveals two key threads: 'early' and 'heavy.'

After listing in 2018, Meituan began shifting its investment focus from consumer sectors to hard tech; by 2020, when the 'Retail + Tech' strategy was formally proposed, this pivot accelerated.

At the time, major firms still focused on gaming, content, and e-commerce—areas with more direct monetization efficiency—while embodied intelligence, AI chips, and humanoid robots remained in their early 'no-man's-land' stages: technical routes were unconverged, commercialization paths unclear, and capital return cycles extremely long.

When others deemed these sectors too early or incomprehensible, Meituan charged ahead.

Data shows that in 2022, amid a 70% plunge in internet firm investments, Meituan bucked the trend, with hard-tech investments accounting for up to 64% of its portfolio. Even in 2025, when its core food delivery business turned unprofitable due to market wars, its hard-tech investments continued to grow.

As industry insiders note, investments typically follow two logics: backing certain sectors amid uncertain returns or capturing market share in certain environments. The true differentiator is the former. Meituan's counter-cyclical moves reflect long-term commitment to technology.

Moreover, Meituan provides not just capital but also scenario-based collaboration. For example, GalaxyCore's Galbot robots now handle 24/7 pharmaceutical sorting in over 10 Beijing pharmacies; Qiyu Innovation collaborated with Ele.me's Xiang Business on warehouse mapping; Hesai's LiDAR secured Mass production fixed-point (mass production approval) for Meituan drones; and Libiao's sorting robots scaled in Meituan's pharmacy warehouses.

These cases reveal a critical truth: Meituan isn't merely 'investing' in tech firms—it's using its core business assets, namely daily real-world transactions, as growth accelerators for its portfolio companies.

An even deeper layer lies in data synergy. Unitree CEO Wang Xingxing admitted at the 2026 Yabuli Forum that robots' biggest bottleneck is insufficient generalization, requiring 'video-generated world models' and massive real-world physical data.

Thus, returning to the original question: Why Meituan?

While most investors still scour pitch decks for sectors, Meituan has been accumulating data for AI evolution in the physical world, day after day.

For Meituan, paper gains from tech investments are secondary; the future within scenarios holds true value.

3. Planting AI into Daily Life

Having invested heavily and laid such an extensive groundwork, what does Meituan aim to achieve with AI?

At a March management briefing, CEO Wang Xing stated, 'Digitizing the physical world will be a crucial foundation for AI. While large models grow smarter, even Einstein as a secretary couldn't book a restaurant with available seats without real-time information. This isn't an intelligence issue but an information one.'

In plain terms, AI must transcend chatboxes and screen-based reasoning—it needs to navigate the physical world, recognize addresses, press elevator buttons, and deliver meals and medicines.

Implicitly, Meituan possesses the richest physical-world information. Its goal is to dominate as the 'gateway' player, not to outdo OpenAI in model parameters but to integrate AI into every local services transaction: ordering food, finding restaurants, booking hotels, purchasing medicines, arranging errands, and dispatching riders—AI should assist in all decision-making to reduce user choice fatigue.

This vision is increasingly clear in Meituan's in-house R&D:

At the foundational level, Meituan's new large model LongCat-2.0-Preview, released for open testing in April, exceeds one trillion parameters. Notably, its training and inference rely entirely on domestic computing clusters, forging a differentiated path in self-sufficiency.

On the user side, Meituan's LongCat-powered AI assistant 'Xiaotuan' served over 100 million users during the May Day holiday, covering dining, entertainment, travel, and more.

Recently, Meituan's AI assistant 'Xiaomei' will launch in collaboration with Tencent Yuanbao, allowing users to access food delivery services directly through Yuanbao. Following the cross-platform cooperation announcement, Meituan and Tencent's shares surged over 9% by June 2, reflecting market recognition of AI synergy value.

On the merchant side, Meituan aims to equip every business with its own AI assistant. 'Smart Shopkeeper' for in-store dining has served over 700,000 merchants, while 'Digital Staff' for service retail covers over 300,000 businesses. These seemingly 'unsexy' tools deliver tangible cost reductions and efficiency gains for merchants.

Beyond these core areas, AI hardware is another 'hardcore' play by Meituan. Notably, its 'urban low-altitude drone network' has commenced regular operations, accumulating over 900,000 commercial orders—second globally—and nearing Large scale profitability ( Large scale profitability : scalable profitability).

With large models providing intelligent brains, AI assistants connecting users, merchant tools empowering supply sides, and drones bridging the 'last mile' of logistics, Meituan is constructing a complete 'Physical AI' infrastructure spanning digital to physical and consumption to delivery.

4. Conclusion

Looking back, Meituan has completed a stunning yet understated transformation from a food delivery platform to a tech foundation in under a decade. Its dual drive of AI investments and in-house R&D, extensive hard-tech portfolio, and unique moat of real-world physical scenarios are quietly rewriting its underlying narrative.

As the market re-evaluates it through a tech company lens, it may discover that this firm's imagination far exceeds initial perceptions.

*The featured image is from Jiemian News' gallery.