Our first podcast episode is finally live! I personally loved the casual chat after the presentation (From 46:05 onwards). Sorry about the audio—my mic didn't record, so I had to re-record my lines as best as I could remember them. And huge thanks to @LujieYang0 and @chris_j_paxton. Looking forward to seeing more research published on our Booster robots 😎

👀 Rumor mill: EngineAI has reportedly filed for a Hong Kong IPO under confidential submission procedures. The company was founded less than 3 years ago, raised a $200M Series B in April, and is now rumored to be valued at over $1.4B USD. Humanoid robots are still in the early stages of commercialization, but the race to the public markets may already be underway. No official confirmation so far. Take it with a grain of salt.

Remember the CMG humanoid robot fights from 2025? CMG 2026 Robot Mecha Fighting Championship is now officially open for global registration. This year's event is expected to feature Unitree's full-size H2 humanoid robot combat and potentially fight with full-body motion capture. A fascinating testbed for AI, locomotion, balance, and whole-body control. If time permits, I'll try to livestream parts of the event on X.

China's embodied AI funding boom is cooling down. Humanoid & embodied AI startups raised ¥31B (~$4.3B) in March, but only ¥8.6B (~$1.2B) in May — a 72% drop in just two months. At first glance, it looks like capital is leaving robotics. But zoom out: • May funding was still up 145% YoY • 2026 YTD funding has already reached ¥68.1B (~$9.5B) • That's more than all of 2025 combined The money hasn't disappeared. It's moving away from "the next Tesla of robotics" and toward the companies selling the picks and shovels: → Actuators → Tactile sensors → Data collection → World models → Training infrastructure Investors are asking harder questions now: Who is buying the robot? How often will it be used? Where does the data come from? When does the customer see ROI? Capital still believes in embodied AI. It just doesn't want to pay a 10-year valuation for a dancing robot video anymore.

Another startup from China called LuvBotics is entering the companion robotics race.

Anyone going to Automate Chicago from June 22nd to 25th? Let me know and we can meet.

Really love this video. Seeing a robot playing with kids in the park is a great reminder that technology is ultimately about creating moments of connection.

An armed quadruped robot designed for military operations.

Robot-Robot Interaction

Official clips from EngineAI’s URKL Robot Fighting Competition are here.

Robots are already out on the streets asking for money in China

Uncanny 🫨

Autonomous obstacle avoidance on a quadruped robot from Prof. Changliu Liu’s group at CMU.

Shots Fired!

Everything Was Already Determined at the Moment of the Big Bang This idea came up in @TairanHe99 Tai Ran’s podcast with OpenAI Research Engineer Jiayi Weng. If the universe is fundamentally deterministic, then every decision, every success, every mistake, and even this tweet may have been inevitable from the very beginning. One of the most thought-provoking conversations I’ve watched recently. Highly recommended.

The most realistic humanoid robot is still a human in a robot suit.

I’m genuinely curious what the BeyondMimic authors would think if they saw their framework being used for this 😂

According to local reports, Xpeng CEO He Xiaopeng will personally take over the company’s robotics division as it enters what he describes as the final stage before mass production. The reported roadmap is: • Q4 2026: humanoid robot mass production • Q1 2027: deployment as in-store sales assistants • Q2 2027: overseas expansion • 2028: entering more households The news comes shortly after reports that a senior robotics executive and early team member has left the company. My take: I’ve never considered Xpeng a leading player in humanoid robotics from a product perspective. So far, the company appears much stronger at marketing and storytelling than at demonstrating truly differentiated robotics capabilities. Of course, if they can actually hit these timelines and deploy robots at scale, I’ll be happy to be proven wrong.

This Robot Dog Qi2 Wireless Charger turns a simple charging dock into a desktop companion. Desktop robots could become a surprisingly large category over the next few years.