Alibaba Leads $100 Million Investment in Chinese Humanoid Robot Startup X Square Robot

Alibaba Cloud leads a $100 million investment in Chinese humanoid robot startup X Square Robot. The funding brings total investment to around $280 million. The startup also released an open-source AI model for embodied AI, named Wall-OSS, which aims to enable robots to perform complex tasks autonomously. The company expects "robotic butlers" to become a reality within five years.

Alibaba Cloud has led a significant investment of $100 million in Chinese humanoid robot startup X Square Robot. This funding round brings the total investment in X Square Robot to around $280 million, reflecting the growing interest in humanoid robots and their potential integration with generative artificial intelligence (AI). The investment was announced on September 8, 2025, and is part of Alibaba's broader strategy to expand its AI capabilities and market presence.

The funding round was led by Alibaba Cloud and included participation from HongShan (formerly Sequoia Capital China), Meituan, Legend Star, Legend Capital, and INCE Capital. X Square Robot, based in Shenzhen, has been generating revenue from sales to schools, hotels, and retirement homes. The startup's latest funding will support its development of advanced humanoid robots and the expansion of its open-source AI model, Wall-OSS.

Wall-OSS is an open-source AI model dedicated to robotics, allowing developers and the public to access its underlying code for free. The model aims to enable robots to perform complex tasks autonomously, a significant advancement in the field of embodied AI. X Square Robot expects that "robotic butlers" could become a reality within the next five years, although specific benchmarks for progress in this area remain unclear.

The investment in X Square Robot aligns with Alibaba's broader strategy to lead in AI-driven technologies. The company has been investing heavily in AI infrastructure, including the development of proprietary AI chips and the expansion of its cloud services. This investment in X Square Robot is another step in Alibaba's efforts to stay at the forefront of AI innovation and capture a larger share of the global AI market.

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[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/08/alibaba-leads-100-million-investment-in-chinese-humanoid-robot-startup.html