DeepSeek Backs Unitree with $20.8 Million in Shanghai IPO
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot manufacturer Unitree and has committed to collaboratively creating AI models for humanoid robots, as stated in a stock-exchange report.
DeepSeek obtained 933,399 Unitree shares, which accounts for 2.31% of the shares designated via the strategic placement of the Shanghai initial public offering.
The firms, both located in Hangzhou, China's eastern tech center, announced they would merge DeepSeek's proficiency in AI models with Unitree's advancements in mechanical engineering, motion control, and embodied intelligence.
Unitree, referred to as Yushu Technology, would prioritize DeepSeek for its model-training services and technical solutions. The filing stated that DeepSeek would likewise prefer Unitree when acquiring robots or investigating embodied-AI applications.
The collaboration focuses on a significant obstacle for humanoid developers: creating a robot "brain" that can comprehend new environments and consistently translate commands into physical movements.
China has created relatively affordable robots that can walk, run, and execute choreographed routines; however, effective autonomous work necessitates models trained on limited real-world data, which includes examples of manipulating objects and reacting to dynamic environments.
Chinese robotics companies are running data-gathering facilities where people consistently assist humanoids in performing tasks like folding laundry and opening doors.
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DeepSeek's AI systems have excelled in coding, mathematics, and reasoning assessments, while also competitively pricing their services.
However, the company's strengths have focused on language model series instead of a multimodal system capable of handling vision and text together. DeepSeek has launched individual vision-language research models, such as VL2, yet they are not incorporated into its primary commercial model.
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In April, a DeepSeek researcher shared a project focused on enhancing visual reasoning using points and bounding boxes; however, the paper and official GitHub repository were later retracted without any public rationale.
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The collaboration with Unitree might supply DeepSeek with robots and real-world data to expedite this effort.