Interviews
Conversations with founders, researchers and engineers.
Tsinghua’s Cao Ting Unveils Zeva-Ego Model for Physical Self-Evolution via Causal Learning
At a Tsinghua University event, Zhang Ya Qin introduced Physical Self-Improvement (PSI), while Professor Cao Ting unveiled the Zeva-Ego model and ICCL framework to enable robots that learn causal relationships from real-world interaction.
Shanghai Jiao Tong University Assistant Researcher Yang Lixin on Why Robots Need a '3D Time Axis'
Shanghai Jiao Tong University assistant researcher Yang Lixin discusses how LaMP, ChronoFlow-Policy, and Track4Action integrate 3D point flow to give robots spatial awareness, temporal memory, and understanding of environmental changes.
HopTo Technology CEO Fangzheng Wang: Building a Robot That Jumps and Flies
In an interview, HopTo Technology CEO Fangzheng Wang discusses the commercialization of Hopcopter, a hybrid drone-leg robot that transitions between jumping and flying. The company aims to launch its first product for overseas markets at under USD 1,000.
Daxiao Robotics and NUS Release ACE-Data-0, a High-Density Multimodal Embodied AI Dataset
Daxiao Robotics and NUS S-Lab released ACE-Data-0, an L5 multimodal embodied dataset. We discuss how high-density, physically grounded data is shifting the industry bottleneck from model architecture to physical supervision.
Huawei Veteran Zhou Shunbo’s New Home Robot Startup Secures Hundreds of Millions in Funding
Zhou Shunbo, founder of Ou La Wan Xiang, discusses his journey from Huawei to creating a wheeled home robot. He argues that data is the first principle of embodied AI and believes that high-value, non-AGI-dependent robots can succeed in family scenarios.
INTACT: Search-Free World Model for Robotics Achieves Faster, More Reliable Control
Researchers propose INTACT, a search-free world model framework that aligns physical and goal intentions using a shared operator. Achieving 95.33% success rate with 300x faster inference than LeWM, it upgrades JEPA from prediction to deployable control.
D-Robotics Unveils 0.04B X-Lens for Real-Time Depth Estimation on Heterogeneous Cameras
D-Robotics, in collaboration with Tokyo University and Suzhou University, released a technical report on July 15 introducing X-Lens, a lightweight depth estimation model with only 0.04B parameters. Capable of real-time metric depth estimation with heterogeneous cameras on edge devices, X-Lens uses a 'ray space' approach to unify fisheye and pinhole camera inputs, achieving high accuracy and efficiency compared to larger models.
GigaAI and Tsinghua University Release GigaWorld-1 to Use World Models as Robot Evaluators
As physical evaluation bottlenecks slow down embodied foundation model iteration, GigaAI and Tsinghua University release GigaWorld-1, using world models as evaluators to reduce reliance on real-world robot testing. Xiaofeng Wang discusses how this approach can accelerate development cycles.
Physical Intelligence bets on cloud-based AI to make one model control all robots
Physical Intelligence's co-founder Quan Vuong discusses the robot 'ChatGPT moment', data bottlenecks, and cloud-based deployment strategies in a recent YC podcast interview.
Physical Intelligence Is Valued at RMB 38.5 Billion Without Making Robots—Its Bet Is on an Operating-System-Like Platform
Physical Intelligence (PI) reached a $5.6 billion valuation by providing models to other robot teams rather than building robot hardware. Co-founder Sergey Levine discusses real-world data and the data flywheel, weak supervision through language annotations, an operating-system-like foundation for diverse robot hardware, and the role of mid-level reasoning.
Embodied AI firm Galaxea raises nearly RMB 2 billion in B+ round, valuation exceeds RMB 20 billion
Embodied AI company Galaxea announced the completion of a nearly 2 billion RMB B+ round of financing. With cumulative financing approaching 5 billion RMB, its valuation has broken through 20 billion RMB, making it one of the few members of the '20 Billion Club' in China's embodied AI industry.
Figure CEO predicts robot industry consolidation into few giants, claims two-year lead
Figure CEO Brett Adcock discusses the necessity of closed-loop control, vertical integration, and mass production in his first comprehensive interview since releasing the Helix 2 model.