Chinese humanoid robot startup X Square Robot has raised about $100 million in a new funding round led by Alibaba Cloud.
Based in Shenzhen, the company was founded in December 2023 and has already completed eight funding rounds. Chief Operating Officer Yang Qian told to media that this deal brings the total investment to about 2 billion yuan ($280 million).
Investors in the round include HongShan (formerly Sequoia China), Meituan, Legend Star, Legend Capital, and INCE Capital. The startup did not share its valuation.
Venture capital interest in humanoid robots is growing, fueled by the belief that combining them with generative AI will change how machines work and interact with people.
“Right now we need robots to operate and complete complex tasks autonomously,” Yang said in Mandarin. She pointed out that after decades of trying to develop robots that have largely been able to perform limited tasks such as grasping objects, the industry has realized that AI is required to enable these machines to expand their capabilities.
On Monday, X Square Robot also introduced an “open-source foundation model for embodied AI” called Wall-OSS. Being open source means developers and the public can freely access and use the core code. Embodied AI refers to applications where the technology is built into physical machines, such as robots or self-driving cars.
The startup said it was the first to open source an AI model of its kind dedicated to robotics — and expects “robotic butlers” to become reality within five years.
Yang admitted that AI for robots is still behind the progress made in generative AI tools like those used for chatting or coding. She said it will likely take another year before robot AI reaches the level of something like ChatGPT 3.5. She also noted that “embodied AI” currently lacks clear benchmarks to measure and compare progress.
While the startup uses Nvidia chips for computing, other functions only require less powerful automotive chips that can be sourced domestically, Yang said.
ChatGPT 3.5, launched by U.S.-based OpenAI in November 2022, was a breakthrough chatbot that changed how businesses viewed AI. Chinese companies have only recently caught up with the release of DeepSeek’s R1 open-source model. Experts believe China is now moving toward a strong global position in AI applications, including robotics.
Along with its open-source software, X Square Robot also unveiled its new Quanta X2 robot on Monday. The robot can attach mop heads for 360-degree cleaning and has hands that can sense small pressure changes, making it a step closer to human-like abilities.
X Square Robot said that it currently doesn’t have a product for mass market delivery, and that specific prices are determined by robot use case. The price of the humanoid robot as per research firm Humanoid Guide is $80,000. Currently rival Unitree sells a humanoid for $16,000, although it’s unclear how advanced its functions are.
Yang said the robot company plans to start preparing for an initial public offering next year, but said the startup had not yet settled on where the listing would be. She said that X Square Robot was already generating revenue from sales to schools, hotels and retirement homes, and expects to grow that next year.
She added that the startup was already speaking with customers in Japan and Singapore. But for robots to really enter the consumer market, their price needs to come down to around $10,000 — largely through cuts in hardware costs — an achievement she expects is possible in three to five years.
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