Yunqi Family at WAIC: New Products, New Trends, New Connections — All in One Place | Yunqi Capital x World Artificial Intelligence Conference

Tickets sold out three days before opening. Over 3,000 exhibits, a record high. Turing Award and Nobel laureate Geoffrey Hinton headlining the opening ceremony. Attendees clocking 10,000+ steps daily... The just-concluded 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) once again made the AI boom tangible.

As large models continue to evolve, AI technology is becoming more perceptible, usable, and interactive. This year's WAIC wasn't just a stage for technology — it felt more like a dress rehearsal for AI integrated into real life.

At this closely watched gathering, Yunqi Capital joined portfolio companies including MiniMax, Manycore Tech, DeepRoute, Keenon Robotics, Realman Robotics, X-Variable, Noematrix, Alpha Square Technology, and Yitu Technology in showcasing new products and fresh thinking. From large models and agents to embodied intelligence, we demonstrated how AI is being brought into daily life across multiple dimensions.

And on the evening the conference wrapped, a mini WAIC afterparty unfolded at Yunqi's courtyard on Anfu Road. We partnered with TechBuzz China, a content and connection platform for US-China tech and venture capital, to host a special edition of our Attent!on salon series — "AI Across Borders" — for an evening of conversation around the fire with a Silicon Valley tech and investment delegation visiting for WAIC, imagining borderless AI innovation.

This issue takes you through all the "newness" Yunqi and our portfolio companies left behind over four days at the conference.

Yunqi Little Guide takes you on a tour

From the Cloud to Your Doorstep

Large Models in Motion

The current AI wave began with large models, and has kept surging as model capabilities leap forward and application forms evolve. By 2025, agents have become the hottest application paradigm. And Yunqi portfolio companies' presentations, perspectives, and products at the conference were a real-world footnote to "putting AI to work."

MiniMax: Full Product Suite Debut

AI for Everyone

"Making AI affordable for everyone — that's our read on where AI is headed. Intelligence with Everyone — that's also why we started this company." At the opening plenary on July 26, Junjie Yan, founder and CEO of MiniMax, a Yunqi Capital seed-round portfolio company, took the stage as the second speaker after Geoffrey Hinton, reaffirming the company's vision of building Everyone's AI.

As one of the few startups persistently developing foundation models in-house, MiniMax has been committed to bringing AI into ordinary people's lives through底层创新. In his opening speech, Yan noted that AI is no longer just an internet tool, but a new form of productivity that is continuously enhancing individual and societal capabilities. "A lot of innovation can make AI development a much less cash-burning industry," he predicted. Through extensive compute network systems and optimization algorithms, inference costs for the best models could drop by another order of magnitude within the next year or two.

Junjie Yan, founder and CEO of MiniMax, delivers keynote "Everyone's AI" at WAIC 2025

At the MiniMax exhibition area, the full product lineup was on display: MiniMax Agent, video generation tool Hailuo AI, voice generation platform MiniMax Audio, and social app STARFIELD. Visitors immersed themselves in multimodal generation while experiencing the "delegate to manage" executive role through MiniMax Agent. A looping cat diving video (generated by Hailuo AI) and the debut of the MiniMax x Rokid AI glasses offered a visceral sense that AI can be both fun and useful. Real, perceptible, and touchable — this is the critical step toward Intelligence with Everyone.

Yunqi Capital seed-round portfolio company and large model unicorn MiniMax exhibition booth

Yitu Technology: Making Steel "Think"

In-Vehicle AI Systems

A closer look at the MiniMax booth would reveal the presence of Yitu Technology, a Yunqi portfolio company, in the "AI Industrial Intelligence Cabin" section. As an ecosystem partner, Yitu's jointly developed intelligent cockpit solution with MiniMax has already been deployed and mass-produced, serving mainstream automakers including BAIC and Great Wall Motor.

At the "youngest section" of this year's conference — the H4 Hall Future Tech exhibition area — Yitu also made its independent debut. Focused on building "cockpits that truly understand you," Yitu has constructed a full-stack technology matrix spanning perception, decision-making, and interaction, centered on its self-developed "XinJie AI Full-Stack System," enabling AI-powered vehicles to become truly human-machine symbiotic intelligent spaces.

Yunqi Capital portfolio company Yitu Technology exhibition booth

From Concept to Floor

Robots Actually Getting to Work

From the generalization capabilities of large models, to agent task execution, to the deep integration of AI with the physical world — AI is entering real scenarios in multiple forms. Embodied intelligence is the most imaginatively compelling extension of this trend.

The packed H3 Hall intelligent terminal exhibition area at WAIC embodied this tension. Multiple Yunqi portfolio companies were present, showcasing an embodied industry ecosystem spanning robot bodies, embodied foundation models, ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arms, and embodied training data.

X-Variable Robotics:

From Intangible Cultural Heritage to Home Services

Embodied Intelligence That Actually Lands

Based on its self-developed general embodied foundation model WALL-A, two wheeled dual-arm robots "Xiaobai" and "Xiaoliang" made their appearance in multi-robot collaboration, completing long-sequence complex tasks from household tidying to intangible cultural heritage sachet crafting and restocking handoffs on-site, achieving autonomous intelligence that "moves beyond single-point commands."

Without pre-set paths, "Xiaobai" could autonomously complete living room cleaning and clothes organization based on voice commands. "Xiaoliang" crafted intangible cultural heritage sachets and delivered them precisely amid complex foot traffic and light/sound interference. The two could also hand off restocking tasks, demonstrating remarkable environmental adaptability and intelligent coordination.

Additionally, the wheeled dual-arm humanoid robot "Quantum 2" made its on-site debut. Equipped with the WALL-A model and 62 degrees of freedom, it showcased X-Variable's leap in hardware-software coordination and operational precision.

Noematrix:

Task Planning + Dexterous Manipulation

Versatile Deployment Across Scenarios

Home cleaning, shoe storage, ice cream making... At the Noematrix booth, robots demonstrated multiple life-like scenarios, showcasing task planning and dexterous manipulation capabilities in open environments.

And on opening day at the "WAIC Robot Skills Showcase," Noematrix CEO Cewu Lu demonstrated embodied intelligence applications in non-standard operations such as skewering, boiling, and weighing for Premier Li Qiang, Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining, and other visiting leaders.

Behind these complex tasks lies Noematrix's latest embodied brain, Noematrix Brain 2.0. Built around a "force-centric" model architecture, it strengthens agent capabilities across the full chain of reasoning, perception, navigation, and execution. It also introduces physical concept learning and fast-slow network architecture, enabling robots to handle high-density contact scenarios.

Yunqi Capital portfolio company Noematrix embodied brain Noematrix Brain 2.0

Alpha Square Technology: Unified Hardware + GOVLA Architecture

General Execution Across Multiple Scenarios

Making coffee, playing drums, completing 2×2 palletizing on a simulated production line — Alpha Square's general-purpose robot AlphaBot delivered multimodal demonstrations across life, industrial, and entertainment scenarios. With unified hardware form factor and self-developed Alpha Brain foundation model, AlphaBot demonstrated strong generalization, fast response, and flexible coordination.

These capabilities stem from Alpha Square's self-developed GOVLA foundation model architecture, which打通 the end-to-end closed loop of perception, planning, and execution, combining long-horizon reasoning with rapid action control. The demo in the exhibition area was also a microcosm of "Aibao's" industrial deployment. Currently, AlphaBot has been deployed in automotive manufacturing, biopharmaceuticals, and semiconductor fabs, and will enter first-tier city airports in China within the year, further validating its general execution capability in open environments.

Keenon Robotics: First Humanoid Product Debut

Work Crew Taking On 10+ Positions

As a "leading player" in service robots and a perennial WAIC exhibitor, Keenon Robotics unveiled its new humanoid robot XMAN-F1, demonstrating multi-position coordination across real scenarios including "tavern and dining," "medical station," and "theater." XMAN-F1 took the stage to present, mixed drinks, made popcorn, and worked with delivery robots, cleaning robots, and other specialized models to complete a service closed loop from preparation to delivery to cleaning, showcasing its "job-ready, real-work" multi-robot coordination capability.

XMAN-F1 also appeared at the centerpiece "WAIC Robot Skills Showcase" exhibition. When Premier Li Qiang, Shanghai Party Secretary Chen Jining, and other leaders visited, Keenon Robotics COO Wan Bin demonstrated XMAN-F1 providing professional services including scooping popcorn and making drinks with highly human-like movements.

Realman Robotics:

Ultra-Lightweight Humanoid Robotic Arm

Building the Foundation for Embodied Industry

Among the robot-filled H3 exhibition area, a black-and-white ultra-lightweight humanoid robotic arm could be spotted at multiple booths. It came from Realman Robotics, an early Yunqi portfolio company and WAIC "old friend."

This year, Realman's independent booth was organized around the theme "From the birth of a robotic arm to robots entering thousands of industries," bringing demonstrations across retail, logistics, healthcare, massage, and security scenarios.

The newly released embodied open-source platform RealBOT was a major highlight. The platform features a flexible body with 21 active degrees of freedom, paired with self-developed high-precision joint modules and multi-sensor fusion systems, providing a standard "foundation" for large model-driven robotic applications. Built around RealBOT, Realman showcased multiple physical products and task demonstrations including an AI massage robot, the RX series humanoid robotic arms, and a robot convenience store.

Yunqi Capital portfolio company Realman Robotics exhibition booth

Manycore Tech: 3DGS Dataset

Giving Robots a "Spatial Brain"

As robots "get to work" in service, logistics, and manufacturing scenarios, how do we train them to understand environments and act flexibly?

As an advocate for the training infrastructure layer of the embodied intelligence chain, Manycore Tech of the "Hangzhou Six Little Dragons" released the world's first large-scale 3D Gaussian semantic dataset, InteriorGS, at WAIC. 3D Gaussian Splatting, with its advantage of "scan to reconstruct," has already made inroads in cultural heritage preservation and spatial design. The InteriorGS dataset released this time marks the first introduction of this technology into AI spatial training, aiming to equip robots and AI agents with more advanced spatial perception capabilities.

The exhibition area presented a training data generation path of "3D Gaussian reconstruction + spatial foundation model + physical simulation." Currently, Manycore has provided training platforms and data support to numerous embodied enterprises including Yunqi portfolio companies Noematrix and Alpha Square Technology, accelerating the journey of general intelligent agents from "perceiving the world" to "understanding and manipulating the world."

Manycore Tech exhibition booth

Where Does AI Deployment Go Next?

As large models, agents, and embodied intelligence enter real scenarios in diverse forms, discussions about "how AI can deploy further" continued to ferment at conference forums.

On AI application development trends, Yunqi Capital partner Chen Yu noted at the "AI+N: The Future Is Here" Light Source AI Industry Integration Forum that video is currently one of the most certain directions for AI applications in the Chinese market. Whether it's Keling AI generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue within a year, or AI short drama companies using models to efficiently generate content at scale and unlock massive market opportunities, AI is reshaping the production efficiency and business models of video content. Additionally, traditional SaaS is being restructured by AI. With model capability加持, SaaS products are becoming cheaper, smarter, and more efficient.

"But ultimately, all applications depend on the foundation of large model capabilities," Chen Yu pointed out. The essence of AI application development still relies on the continuous evolution of large models, and every leap in model capability opens new windows for deployment.

On the specific vertical of intelligent driving, DeepRoute founder and CEO Zhou Guang attended CICC's investment and financing development forum, offering in-depth analysis of the inflection point opportunities that end-to-end VLA technology brings to advanced assisted driving and embodied intelligence, and how enterprises can seize these opportunities.

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Yunqi Capital partner Chen Yu at Light Source AI Industry Integration Forum

Yunqi Capital portfolio company DeepRoute founder and CEO Zhou Guang at CICC Investment and Financing Development Forum

WAIC "Afterparty": Silicon Valley x Yunqi Borderless Exchange

On the evening of July 29, as the 2025 World Artificial Intelligence Conference drew to a close, we welcomed a "cross-border" dialogue at Yunqi's office courtyard on Shanghai's Anfu Road. The TechBuzz China-initiated China Tech Discovery Trip: AI (2025) delegation visited Yunqi, and a Silicon Valley tech and investment delegation of over 20 engaged in exchange with us.

From large models to AI agents, from system architecture to hardware coordination, we shared our typical deployment across the full AI chain. Three portfolio companies focused on agents and overseas business — Creao AI, Cloudsway, and Pioneer Fountain — presented in turn, diving into their innovative practices in agent operating systems, agent search engines, and agent marketing tools respectively.

As night fell, the Yunqi BBQ made its scheduled appearance. Cross-border exchange and perspective碰撞 unfolded over delicious barbecue. This evening conversation felt like another kind of WAIC continuation. Beyond the conference venue, we kept talking deployment, discussing products, and imagining a borderless innovative future.

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Stronger models, more diligent agents, busier robots. At this "hottest ever" AI conference, we saw technology integrating into reality in perceptible, usable ways. The exploration of deployment is not an endpoint, but the starting point for a new round of imagination. In the ceaseless surge of AI, we will continue standing alongside creators, charting paths and building boats together, sailing toward farther horizons.