DeepSeek Takes 36-Month Locked Stake In Unitree To Co-Develop AI Models For Humanoid Robot Cognition
DeepSeek has taken a strategic stake in humanoid robotic producer Unitree Robotics because the Hangzhou-based agency launched its preliminary public providing on Shanghai’s STAR Market, marking mainland China’s first itemizing within the humanoid robotics sector. Unitree priced the IPO at 150.8 yuan per share, reaching a valuation of $9 billion and elevating $900 million and effectively above its preliminary goal.
DeepSeek invested $20.8 million for 933,399 shares, equal to 2.31% of the strategically positioned allocation, topic to a 36-month lock-up. The AI startup was joined by Tencent, Kunlun Capital affiliated with CNPC, a Southern Power Grid subsidiary, China Telecom, Citic Securities, and the National Council for Social Security Fund, every contributing comparable quantities.
The providing establishes Unitree as a valuation anchor for China’s booming embodied-AI sector, although the corporate faces geopolitical headwinds: U.S. gross sales comprised 13.3% of 2025 income, and future fashions threat exclusion underneath tightening American commerce restrictions on Chinese robotics.
Joint Development Pact Targets Robot Cognition and Embodied Intelligence
Beyond the capital injection, DeepSeek and Unitree have entered a proper co-development settlement to construct AI fashions and embodied-intelligence methods. The two Hangzhou-based companies will combine DeepSeek’s giant language-model experience with Unitree’s strengths in mechanical engineering, movement management, and {hardware}. Unitree will prioritize DeepSeek for model-training companies and technical options, whereas DeepSeek will favor Unitree for robotic procurement and embodied-AI exploration.
The partnership immediately addresses the central bottleneck in humanoid robotics: making a dependable “mind” able to decoding unfamiliar environment and translating high-level directions into exact bodily actions. Unitree plans to allocate 85% of IPO proceeds to analysis and improvement—masking robotic software program, {hardware} structure, and new product traces—whereas directing 15% towards manufacturing growth.
The R&D emphasis is already seen within the firm’s monetary trajectory: though 2025 income quadrupled to roughly $252 million and humanoid gross sales overtook quadruped merchandise as the most important income stream, first-quarter 2026 revenue excluding one-off objects fell 52.6% to roughly $6 million as analysis and advertising and marketing expenditures accelerated. By locking DeepSeek right into a three-year fairness dedication and appointing it as a co-developer, Unitree is successfully enlisting certainly one of China’s most formidable mannequin labs to architect its cognitive stack.
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