Author

Bao Kemeng

Why Deng Taihua suddenly became the legal representative, chairman, and CEO of the company

'Power Bank Display', 'Autonomous Driving Bicycle', 'Mechanical Arm' - each product video easily surpassed one million views upon release, showcasing Huawei's 'Genius Youth · Zhihui Jun's' keen market sense and initial demonstration of his DIY capabilities.

On April 4, 2023, 'Zhihui Jun' announced on Bilibili, 'Wisdom Robotics is hiring~', marking the official establishment of Wisdom Robotics (Shanghai Wisdom Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., hereinafter referred to as 'Wisdom Robotics'). On August 18, 2023, Wisdom Robotics held the '2023 Wisdom Embodied Intelligence Robot Expedition A1 Launch Event', introducing the first-generation Wisdom Robotics to the public.

A year later, the 'Expedition A2' series of new robots was updated on schedule, along with the open-sourcing of the self-developed high-performance middleware AimRT. In October, the full set of Lingxi X1 materials was open-sourced, kickstarting an 'all-people participation' intelligent feast. On December 16, 2024, Zhihui Jun announced that Wisdom Robotics had crossed the initial hurdles and set its sights on the stars and the sea.

To date, Wisdom Robotics has R&D centers in Zhangjiang and Lingang, Shanghai, with the Shenzhen center established on January 23 this year, marking the offline production of the 1000th general-purpose embodied robot. In March this year, Deng Taihua, former vice president of Huawei and former president of the computing product line, took over as chairman and CEO of Wisdom Robotics. By the time the news broke, Wisdom Robotics had completed its registration changes.

How did Deng Taihua, who previously had no connection with Wisdom Robotics, suddenly become the company's legal representative, chairman, and CEO? Market rumors suggest that 'Deng Taihua was not the latest addition to this popular humanoid robot startup; he was actually one of its founders.'

However, this information cannot be verified at present. What is confirmed is that Deng Taihua brought new contracts to the company shortly after taking office.

Illustration: Source IT Home Wisdom Robotics and Wuhan jointly build Guanggu Dongzhi, expected to release two humanoid robots this year

Wisdom Robotics' shareholder list includes almost all top domestic investment institutions, such as Hillhouse Capital, Sequoia Capital, CDH Investments, Huajin Capital, Matrix Partners China, and M31 Capital. It also includes major players within the industrial chain, such as Tencent, Baidu, BYD, TCL, iSoftStone, and Zhongke Chuangxing. So, what does a robotics company founded by former Huawei employees have that has attracted investments from top institutions and become the focus of market attention?

01

What are Wisdom Robotics' core strengths?

As a hardware manufacturer, research capabilities are the foundation of the company.

Wisdom Robotics boasts a comprehensive product line and rapid progress in commercial mass production, encompassing three major product lines: Expedition, Lingxi, and Genie. By the end of 2024, Wisdom Robotics, in collaboration with the Shanghai Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the National and Local Collaborative Innovation Center for Humanoid Robots, and Shanghai Copass Technology Co., Ltd., released the AgiBot Digital World, an open-source project for a million real-world dataset based on comprehensive real-world scenarios.

Public information shows that AgiBot Digital World covers over 100 real-world scenarios, with 40% in home settings, 20% each in catering and industrial scenarios, and 10% each in supermarkets and office settings. It is a simulation platform specifically designed for the research and application of robot manipulation skills, providing not only a flexible simulation data generation solution but also open-sourcing pre-trained large-scale simulation data.

On this basis, Wisdom Robotics released the first large model for general-purpose embodied bases, GO-1, on March 10, marking a rapid advance towards the generalization, openness, and intelligence of embodied intelligence.

The GO-1 model is developed based on the AgiBot Digital World dataset released by Wisdom Robotics at the end of 2024 and introduces the Vision-Language-Latent-Action (ViLLA) architecture, enabling learning from human videos and rapid generalization from small samples, significantly lowering the technical threshold for embodied intelligence. Currently, the GO-1 model has been successfully deployed into multiple Wisdom Robotics robots, closely integrated with the robot systems. With continuous evolution and optimization, the GO-1 model will bring more unprecedented possibilities to the development of embodied intelligence technology.

On March 11, Wisdom Robotics released the new Lingxi X2, which boasts comprehensive motion, interaction, and operational capabilities, showcasing the integration of artificial intelligence and humanoid robot technology. According to Zhihui Jun, Lingxi X2 is a high-degree-of-freedom bipedal embodied robot equipped with an intelligent interaction engine and capable of performing general tasks.

Zhihui Jun introduced the latest Lingxi X2 in detail, noting that the team designed many reusable core components for it, such as the cerebellar controller Xyber-edge, domain controller Xyber-Dcu, intelligent power management system Xyber-BMS, and the iteratively upgraded core key module Powerflow.

Users can quickly build a complete and reliable humanoid robot system of various forms using these components, similar to assembling a drone model with a flight controller, including Zhihui Jun's long-awaited Nezha full-body robot. To be more 'anthropomorphic', Lingxi X2 also employs a large amount of flexible materials and redesigned electromechanical joint modules.

Zhihui Jun explained that among the 28 degrees of freedom in Lingxi X2's prototype, no parallel linkages are used, ensuring both upward inertia and complete decoupling of the transmission chain. Zhihui Jun also demonstrated Lingxi X2 sitting with slight lateral leg sway, thanks to advancements in motion control algorithms. Mainstream robot motion control has fully shifted from traditional Model Base to capability-driven reinforcement learning, making Lingxi X2, equipped with self-developed models, increasingly anthropomorphic.

02

How does Wisdom Robotics' mass production speed set new industry records?

Reviewing the entire process of Wisdom Robotics' development from scratch, the company released its first product, Expedition A1, just six months after its establishment. In January 2024, a manufacturing plant was established in Shanghai, followed by the release of Expedition A2 and Lingxi X1 series products in August and the establishment of a self-built 3000+ square meter data collection factory in September. In January 2025, Wisdom Robotics cumulatively mass-produced and offline produced 1000 general-purpose embodied robots, setting a new industry record.

Considering Wisdom Robotics' layout, its shareholders include industrial chain enterprises such as Zhongke Chuangxing, iSoftStone (301236), Longqi Technology (603341), and Wolong Electric Drive (600580), which is positive for the company's component finalization and mass production.

Take motors, which determine degrees of freedom, as an example. Wolong Electric Drive has been deeply involved in the motor industry for years and has deployed key components for humanoid robots, such as high-burst joint modules, servo drives, and frameless torque motors, tailored to the needs of the humanoid robot industry. Meanwhile, its subsidiary, Hill Robotics, is a leading global provider of industrial robot integration solutions with extensive experience in flexible manufacturing, industrial scenarios, and customer relations.

In December 2024, Hill Robotics, a subsidiary of Wolong Electric Drive, signed a scene application cooperation agreement with Wisdom Robotics. The two parties will collaborate in embodied intelligence technology and the expansion of flexible manufacturing solution scenarios. This strategic capital increase plans to implement a series of demonstration projects in flexible manufacturing, industrial automation, AI cleaning solutions, and other scenarios.

Wisdom Robotics is an industry-leading embodied intelligence robot enterprise, while Hill Robotics is a leading enterprise in the global industrial robot system integration field. Through scene application cooperation and equity cooperation, the two parties are expected to accelerate the industrialization of embodied intelligence robots and promote the application of robots in various scenarios.

In March this year, Zhejiang Hill Robotics Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Wolong Electric Drive, and Wisdom Robotics successfully signed an equity investment agreement. Wisdom Robotics will complete a strategic investment in Hill Robotics through a capital increase and share expansion.

The participation and contributions of numerous industry elite suppliers have enabled Wisdom Robotics to build a powerful and efficient intelligent robot supply chain system, transforming its leading 'body + cerebellum + brain' full-stack technology layout into excellent robot products and successfully achieving large-scale mass production, delivering to customers in various regions and industries. Public information shows that Wisdom Robotics has awarded prizes to partner enterprises that have obtained excellent suppliers. This incentive measure is also in line with current industry practices, encouraging enterprises within the industrial chain to iterate their products simultaneously to meet Wisdom Robotics' needs.

03

How competitive is embodied intelligence?

The reason why Wisdom Robotics is in such a hurry, not only to compete with itself but also with suppliers, may be related to the entire industry entering a period of rapid development.

Firstly, there's the well-known industry catalyst Tesla, which announced that it will increase its Optimus mass production forecast to several thousand to 10,000 units in 2025, a further increase from previous expectations. Tesla's mass production plan will be divided into multiple phases, with robots produced in 2025 being tested in Tesla factories and potentially available for external sales in 2026. Currently, Wisdom Robotics has achieved mass production of 1000 units, taking an early lead in market share. For now, Wisdom Robotics has succeeded in its competition.

In terms of software enablement, NVIDIA is building a robotic underlying development ecosystem across three core areas: large models, data, and development platforms, and has partnered with 14 humanoid robot enterprises, potentially accelerating robot deployment. From the results, Wisdom Robotics released the GO-1 model and introduced Lingxi X2, indicating that Wisdom Robotics has also won in this competition. Besides these two companies, overseas giants, while also deploying in the humanoid robot industry, have mainly focused on investments in humanoid robot enterprises, model development, and application directions.

Domestically, internet companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent have begun to explore the humanoid robot market. Alibaba has been investing in AI large model startups, funding major domestic large model startups including Moon's Dark Side, MiniMax, Zhipu AI, Zero-One, and Baichuan Intelligence. In the field of robots, it has invested in Shenzhen Zhuji Power Technology Co., Ltd.

Baidu, with its own Wenxin large model, has chosen to collaborate with the leading humanoid robot enterprise UBTECH to jointly explore the application of China's AI large model + humanoid robots. By integrating the Wenxin large model, WalkerS, which already possesses multimodal perception and motion control capabilities, has gained advanced intent understanding and fine-grained planning abilities. Additionally, its investment fund has invested in Shanghai Wisdom Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.

Tencent focuses on both investment and independent research and development, investing in humanoid robot enterprises such as Leju and UBTECH while developing its own GPTs large model. Tencent's RoboticsX robot laboratory has also applied AI models to its self-developed robot dog. In October 2024, ByteDance officially released the second-generation robot large model GR-2 and invested in enterprises such as Dahuan Robotics. iFLYTEK has developed the iFLYTEK Spark cognitive large model and released its own humanoid robot product in October 2023, collaborating with Dalian Di'aisi Technology Development Co., Ltd. Meanwhile, Meituan has invested in Galaxy Universal and Unitree Robotics.

Additionally, automobile-related enterprises led by Xiaomi and XPeng are continuously promoting the industrialization of humanoid robots. Cinda Securities believes that the strong manufacturing capabilities of automobile enterprises are expected to reduce the manufacturing costs of humanoid robots and accelerate their deployment. However, the entry of automobile enterprises into the humanoid robot market is not the end of industry competition but rather propels humanoid robots into a fast lane of development.

To maintain a first-mover advantage, some enterprises have already begun upgrading the core components of humanoid robots, such as dexterous hands. Dexterous hands, one of the core components of humanoid robots, possess high technical barriers and are essential for robots to interact with the real physical world. Currently, Tesla has upgraded its dexterous hand from 11 degrees of freedom to 22 degrees of freedom, and domestic enterprises such as Unitree Robotics are also planning upgrades.

The industry generally believes that dexterous hands are likely to be the next direction of iteration for humanoid robots and the future trend of the entire industry. Currently, Wisdom Robotics' dexterous hands can already suture grape skins, and some automobile enterprises also possess the ability to equip dexterous hands. This field deserves continued market attention.

Note: The lead image is Unitree Technology's Unitree G1

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This article is originally created by Baker Street Detective and should not be reproduced without permission.