DeepSeek invests $20.8 mln in Unitree's Shanghai IPO strategic placement

Published Aug 6, 01:44 PM UTC

Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot maker Unitree (Yushu Technology) as part of Unitree's Shanghai IPO strategic placement, acquiring 933,399 shares representing 2.31% of the allocated shares. The two Hangzhou-based companies will jointly develop AI models for humanoid robots, combining DeepSeek's AI expertise with Unitree's mechanical engineering and embodied intelligence. The partnership aims to address the key challenge of building a robot 'brain' capable of understanding surroundings and executing physical tasks. Unitree will prioritize DeepSeek for model-training services, while DeepSeek will favor Unitree for robot purchases. The deal could provide DeepSeek with physical-world data to advance its multimodal AI capabilities, which have been focused on language models rather than integrated vision-language systems.