While Yushu captures attention with its ToC hot products, Zhiyuan chooses to leverage the essential needs and quantifiable benefits of industrial scenarios to tap into the capital market—this may represent a more sustainable growth paradigm for “hard technology”.
Editor | Lao Zhao
On August 11, a milestone moment arrived in China’s intelligent manufacturing sector. Zhiyuan Robotics officially signed a multi-million yuan project cooperation agreement with Fulian Precision, with nearly a hundred Expedition A2-W robots set to be deployed on Fulian’s production line. This marks not only the first large-scale commercial order for embodied robots in the domestic industrial sector but also the first large-scale implementation of this category in the global intelligent manufacturing landscape.
Just a month ago, Zhiyuan Robotics secured a 78 million yuan order for full-size humanoid biped robots from China Mobile, setting a record for the highest single purchase in the domestic humanoid robot sector. These two significant orders signify that China’s embodied intelligent robotics industry has officially crossed the critical threshold from 0 to 1, ushering in a new era of large-scale commercial applications.
▎01 A Hundred Robots “On Duty” in Automotive Manufacturing
The Expedition A2-W wheeled general-purpose robot can easily navigate between production lines in Fulian Precision’s workshop, accurately completing tasks such as unloading, transporting, and loading turnover boxes. These intelligent robots, designed specifically for flexible manufacturing scenarios, demonstrated impressive capabilities during their “debut” in July—achieving a turnover delivery capacity of 1000 boxes per shift, perfectly matching the full production demand of a single production line for that month.
With the comprehensive deployment of nearly a hundred robots, the transformation is evolving into a systemic revolution:
The operational scope has expanded from the initial 2 production line points to 15 loading points across the two core workshops of powertrain and gearbox;Daily handling of raw material delivery tasks exceeding 500 units, while also undertaking automated empty box recovery tasks;Completing nearly ten thousand box-moving actions per shift, becoming the core logistics force connecting the workshop production processes.
Behind this system is the deep collaborative innovation of “embodied robots + AMR (Autonomous Mobile Robots). The embodied robot A2-W is responsible for the retrieval and placement of multi-layer material racks, while the AMR handles the transportation of heavy loads within the workshop. The two complement each other, leveraging the embodied robot’s generalized operational capabilities and adaptive abilities in complex scenarios, while utilizing the AMR’s efficiency advantages in long-distance, high-load transportation.
As a leading enterprise in the automotive parts subdivision, Fulian Precision has experienced rapid growth in its new energy vehicle-related business in recent years. Its engineering director, Deng Yang, commented: “The performance of the Expedition A2-W on the production line exceeded expectations. It can autonomously adjust its grasping posture when faced with irregularly stacked material boxes, and it avoids obstacles in real-time when personnel walk through, achieving nearly ten thousand operations per shift with zero faults.”
▎02 Three Core Capabilities of the Expedition A2-W
The confidence in the large-scale application of the Expedition A2-W stems from three core technological breakthroughs:
1. Multimodal Perception System: Real-time identification of dynamic obstacles such as personnel, equipment, and materials, ensuring safety in human-robot mixed operations. In the complex factory environment, the robot can perceive changes in the surrounding environment like a human and avoid moving obstacles.
2. Dual-arm Coordination and High-precision Operation: Adapting to turnover boxes of different sizes and weights, with a grasping accuracy reaching millimeter level. This allows the robot to handle various specifications of material boxes without the need for reprogramming for each specification.
3. Autonomous Error Correction Algorithm: In the event of unexpected anomalies, the robot can autonomously restore the operational process without human intervention. When encountering unexpected situations, such as material position shifts or mechanical arm movement obstructions, the system can automatically adjust its strategy and continue the task.
These technological breakthroughs enable the Expedition A2-W to effectively replace workers in completing repetitive tasks that can lead to occupational injuries, allowing human employees to focus on more valuable operational aspects. In Fulian Precision’s workshop, robots are becoming “good partners” for workers, rather than mere replacements.
▎03 Building a 15 Billion Valuation Robot Empire in Two Years
Surprisingly, achieving this milestone, Zhiyuan Robotics was established only a little over two years ago. Founded in February 2023 in Shanghai Lingang, the company is now valued at 15 billion yuan, ranking among the top players in the embodied intelligence field.
Zhiyuan’s core advantage stems from its unique “technology + business” dual-core driving model:
The technological mastermind, Peng Zhihui (Zhihui Jun): This 1993-born master’s graduate from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China was once the highest annual salary recipient of Huawei’s “Genius Youth Program” (2.01 million yuan), and has over a million followers on Bilibili. As a co-founder and CTO, he injects innovative genes into Zhiyuan with his hardcore technical background (such as DIY projects in autonomous bicycles, robotic arms, etc.).
The business leader, Deng Taihua: Former senior vice president of Huawei and president of the computing product line, officially took over as Zhiyuan’s chairman and CEO in March 2025. He has led the construction of Huawei’s Ascend AI ecosystem and Kunpeng computing power platform, bringing top-notch commercialization capabilities and strategic resources to Zhiyuan.
The product matrix covers three major scenarios:
Expedition Series: Full-size industrial robots, focusing on flexible intelligent manufacturing
Lingxi Series: Half-size interactive robots, emphasizing emotional interaction and educational research
Spirit Series: Robots dedicated to data collection scenarios
Bridging the gap in embodied intelligence from the entity to the physical world:
The pain point in the embodied intelligence industry lies in the implementation of tasks in complex scenarios, lacking a standardized “bridge”; on the other hand, the disconnection between simulation and deployment also affects the efficiency of the migration and verification of the robot entity to some extent. The Lingqu OS developed by Zhiyuan aims to provide a unified solution to this pain point.
In January 2025, Zhiyuan will reach an important milestone—the production line of the 1000th general-purpose embodied robot will roll off. It is expected that the total shipment volume for the year 2025 will reach several thousand units, with a cooperation network covering automotive industry giants such as BYD and Sanhua Intelligent Control.
▎04 Zhiyuan’s Capital Chess Game and the “Zhiyuan Chain” Ecosystem
In July 2025, Zhiyuan Robotics acquired 66.99% of the shares of the listed company Shangwei New Materials (688585) for 2.1 billion yuan, with the actual controller changing to Zhiyuan CEO Deng Taihua. Although Zhiyuan officially denied this as a “backdoor listing”, the capital market reacted enthusiastically—after resuming trading, Shangwei New Materials’ stock price hit the daily limit of 20%, with a cumulative increase of over ten times within the year, and its market value soared from 3.2 billion to 11.2 billion yuan, an increase of 250%. Shangwei New Materials is a high-performance new materials technology company, mainly engaged in environmentally friendly resins, wind turbine blade materials, and recyclable resins, with a revenue of 1.494 billion yuan in 2024 and 151 patents, making it a global leader in wind power materials. This acquisition is seen as a key step for Zhiyuan to open up the A-share financing channel and accelerate the landing of technology.
Compared to Yushu Technology’s continuous five years of profitability in the ToC market, Zhiyuan validates its commercialization capabilities through large-scale industrial orders (such as Fulian Precision and the 78 million yuan order from China Mobile), supporting its valuation. If the “A+H” dual-platform is realized, it may become the highest-valued company in the global embodied intelligence track. For both, whoever can complete the listing on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board first will mean receiving more financial support.
The Robot ETF (159530) has seen a net inflow of 720 million yuan in the past five days, with a financing balance of 168 million yuan, and the sector’s popularity continues to rise. Everbright Securities pointed out that this order will benefit the “Zhiyuan Chain” ecosystem partners (such as core components and system integrators) from the wave of large-scale industrial embodied intelligence.
▎05 In Conclusion: Embodied Intelligence Opens the Era of Industry 4.0
With nearly a hundred Expedition A2-W robots fully “on duty” at Fulian Precision’s factory, the intelligent transformation of China’s manufacturing industry has reached a turning point. Embodied robots are no longer limited to laboratory demonstrations and sporadic pilot projects, but are beginning to systematically reshape production processes.
The development path of Zhiyuan Robotics reveals a clear future picture: embodied intelligence will become the core infrastructure of Industry 4.0. These robots, capable of adapting to complex environments and making autonomous decisions, will fundamentally change our understanding of “automation”—from mechanical repetition of pre-set programs to intelligent collaboration that perceives the environment and makes autonomous decisions.
As technology continues to mature and costs continue to decline, embodied robots are expected to experience explosive growth in the next five years. It is predicted that by 2030, the global market size for embodied intelligent robots will reach hundreds of billions of dollars, covering multiple fields such as industrial manufacturing, logistics warehousing, and home services.
Wang Chuang, president of Zhiyuan Robotics’ general division, stated: “This commercial order of nearly a hundred units with Fulian Precision not only validates the technological maturity of embodied robots but also marks the manufacturing industry’s recognition of their commercial value.”
In the new era of intelligent manufacturing, Chinese technology companies are transforming from followers to leaders. Zhiyuan Robotics’ “expedition” is not only a commercial breakthrough but also represents China’s strategic breakthrough in the cutting-edge track of embodied intelligence. When nearly a hundred robots begin to operate simultaneously in Fulian Precision’s workshop, what we hear is not just the sound of machines operating, but the footsteps of China’s intelligent manufacturing stepping into a new era.
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