India’s humanoids, BYD, farming robots in Britain, more robot hands … and $7.4 billion

ONE: BYD’s humanoid arrives at a hot geopolitical moment

BYD is prepping its first humanoid robot for an August launch.

It’ll be called Xiao Di and is expected to appear at BYD’s Di Space experience center in Zhengzhou, where its first job will be greeting dealership visitors.

That puts BYD alongside Tesla, Xpeng, Chery, and other automakers that increasingly see humanoid robots as a natural extension of their manufacturing, battery, motor, and artificial-intelligence capabilities.

But Xiao Di is arriving just as the United States is closing the door.

The FCC has imposed restrictions on newly authorized Chinese-made humanoid and quadruped robots, citing cybersecurity, surveillance, and national-security risks. Previously approved products are generally unaffected, but future Chinese robots could need exemptions to enter the American market.

So this is more than another robot reveal. 

Xiao Di is becoming a symbol of two robotics ecosystems moving rapidly forward and increasingly moving apart.

TWO: Ati builds around China

That separation could create an opening for Ati Robotics.

Ati is an Indian company that makes autonomous industrial vehicles, including pallet movers and heavy-duty tuggers, using only a small number of Chinese components. It just rebranded from Ati Motors to Ati Robotics.

Now it’s going to make humanoid robots too, giving India a humanoid robot company. And it’s trying to make its robots without ANY Chinese parts.

Ati started making those sourcing decisions before the latest restrictions. Today, they look unusually well timed.

Ati has used India’s growing electric-vehicle supply base while developing key systems locally or in-house. It is also planning assembly operations in Michigan.

That will not make Ati completely independent from China. 

But in a market suddenly obsessed with where every robot component comes from, “mostly China-free” could become a meaningful competitive advantage.

THREE: Robot hands are starting to hit production scale

Meanwhile, China’s component makers are growing quickly.

Shenzhen-based Taoshi Intelligent Technology has reportedly raised 140 million yuan, taking its valuation above one billion yuan.

The company makes compact reducers and joint modules … the small but critical mechanisms that turn motor power into precise robot movement.

More important than the funding is the order book.

Taoshi says it has signed an agreement to supply 100,000 dexterous-hand joint modules to a group of robotics customers.

An order is not the same thing as a completed shipment, and those volumes still need to materialize. But it points toward a changing industry.

Humanoid companies are no longer ordering components only for laboratories and trade-show demonstrations. Suppliers are beginning to prepare for genuine production runs.

FOUR: DeepMind veterans simplify robot training

A team of former Google DeepMind researchers has emerged from stealth with Reimagine Robotics.

Its pitch is essentially monkey see, monkey do.

Instead of hiring a specialist to program every movement, an ordinary worker demonstrates a task. The robot watches, attempts it, and can be corrected on the spot.

That could make automation practical for jobs that change too frequently to justify weeks of engineering.

The company was founded by former DeepMind Applied Robotics leader Jonathan Scholz with Oleg Sushkov, Akhil Raju, and Misha Denil. It has spent the past year building its platform and testing it with customers.

The technical challenge will be reliability. Copying one successful demonstration is relatively easy. Handling unfamiliar objects, interruptions, and all the weird edge cases of a real workplace is much harder.

But reducing the programming burden remains one of the biggest opportunities in industrial robotics.

FIVE: Britain sends robots farming

The UK government has opened a £20 million competition for agricultural robotics.

The money will support machines and automated systems for planting, monitoring, tending, and harvesting across farming, horticulture, livestock, and forestry.

The practical target is seasonal-labor pressure.

Harvesting delicate crops is repetitive and physically demanding, but it is also surprisingly difficult to automate. A robot has to recognize ripe produce, reach through leaves, handle it without damage, and keep working in mud, rain, and changing sunlight.

Projects such as Fieldwork Robotics’ raspberry-picking machine show how specialized these systems need to be.

The new competition brings Britain’s farming research and technology support announced this year to £123 million. The test now is turning funded prototypes into machines that farmers can operate—and afford.

Number of the day: $7.4 billion

Citic Securities estimates that Unitree could be valued at between 50.6 billion and 55.9 billion yuan within six to twelve months of listing. That is more than US$7.4 billion at the bottom of the range.

Unitree plans to issue at least 40.4464 million new shares, representing roughly ten percent of its enlarged share capital. Investor subscriptions are scheduled to open August 10.

Unlike many humanoid startups, Unitree brings meaningful revenue to the market. It reported almost 1.7 billion yuan in 2025 sales, up sharply from the previous year, with thousands of robots already shipped.

Approximately half of the planned proceeds will support research into embodied-intelligence models.

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