Chinese humanoid robot developer X Square Robot said Monday it has raised nearly RMB 1 billion ($140 million) in a funding round led by Alibaba Cloud, marking the Alibaba unit’s first foray into the fast-emerging field of embodied artificial intelligence, reports Caixin. Alibaba Cloud, the cloud computing arm of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., will offer “multifaceted support” to X Square, the Shenzhen-based startup said. Other investors include CAS Investment, China Development Bank Capital, and Hongshan Capital Group. Existing backers Meituan and Legend Capital also participated.
The fresh capital will be used to train the company’s fully self-developed embodied intelligence foundation models and further develop its hardware, X Square said.
The financing underscores a broader wave of investment pouring into the embodied AI space—where intelligent agents interact with and adapt to the physical world. A growing group of deep-tech startups is drawing capital from eager investors, propelling a race to build and commercialize general-purpose robots. The influx has accelerated development timelines and set some firms on a path toward initial public offerings (IPO).