Qiming Star | BAIC Group's EV arm partners with UBTECH, as Stelato Super Factory welcomes first humanoid robot inspector Walker S1
UBTECH has deep expertise in humanoid robotics, with long-standing accumulation and first-mover advantages in Embodied Artificial Intelligence, intelligent hardware, system integration, and commercial applications. These strengths will help new energy vehicles advance toward high-end, intelligent, and green development, while continuously pushing industrial upgrading toward cutting-edge, precision-focused directions.
Recently, BAIC Group's new energy division has partnered with UBTECH (09880.HK), a Qiming Venture Partners portfolio company, to build a world-leading demonstration production line for humanoid robots in new energy vehicle manufacturing — setting a new benchmark for intelligent upgrades in high-end manufacturing. At the Stelato Super Factory — a production base for premium all-electric luxury sedans co-developed by BAIC Group and Huawei — UBTECH's industrial humanoid robot Walker S1 has been deployed in the final assembly workshop to perform material inspection tasks on the instrument panel line, achieving a 99% accuracy rate in intelligent detection.
As the first humanoid robot "quality inspector" at the Stelato Super Factory, Walker S1 uses a pure vision-based system to precisely detect the category and quantity of automotive parts, coordinating with automated inspection workflows to demonstrate a high level of intelligence. By innovatively feeding 3D reconstructed workpiece models into simulation tools, the system generates large volumes of synthetic data that more closely mimics real camera imaging styles, which is then used to train vision foundation models — ultimately enabling zero-shot detection based on visual prompts. To address challenges such as occluded part features, visually similar components, and closely packed placements, Walker S1 employs a tracking-based post-processing fusion technique that effectively filters and compensates for occasional false negatives and false positives across individual frames, significantly improving the reliability of detection results.
Jiao Jichao, Vice President of UBTECH and Dean of the Research Institute, said: "The application of humanoid robots in intelligent manufacturing is becoming a new frontier in global technological competition. UBTECH has long focused on the humanoid robot sector, building up deep expertise and first-mover advantages in Embodied Artificial Intelligence, intelligent hardware, system integration, and commercial applications. These strengths will help drive new energy vehicles toward high-end, intelligent, and green development, while continuously advancing industrial structure upgrades toward cutting-edge precision."
The Stelato Super Factory represents BAIC Group's vision for a high-end, intelligent, and green manufacturing system, featuring highly automated production lines, meticulously refined processes, and stringent environmental standards. It stands as BAIC Group's all-in bet on intelligent and electrified transformation, with automation levels approaching those of a "lights-out factory."
Wang Hui, General Manager of BAIC New Energy's Beijing Branch, said: "In the Stelato factory's production process, every new vehicle undergoes rigorous round-the-clock quality monitoring and sensing systems. From production to transport to delivery, the entire process achieves real-time monitoring, tracking, and traceability, ensuring flawless quality for every vehicle. The introduction of humanoid robots marks an important step for BAIC New Energy in the field of intelligent manufacturing. The efficiency and precision of Walker S1 not only significantly boost quality inspection productivity but also effectively reduce human error, ensuring the high quality of every vehicle that leaves the factory."
Currently, UBTECH is actively exploring general-purpose humanoid robot swarm operation solutions for multi-task industrial scenarios, and has for the first time introduced swarm intelligence technology into the humanoid robot field — pushing humanoid robots from single-machine autonomy toward comprehensive swarm intelligence evolution. To address the high-dimensional decision-making demands of complex production-line-level tasks, UBTECH has developed the world's first humanoid robot multimodal reasoning large model, endowing humanoid robots with human-like commonsense reasoning capabilities that enable them to efficiently decompose, schedule, and coordinate complex tasks across multiple robots, thereby elevating the intelligence level of swarm operations. These innovations not only provide a reference paradigm for the large-scale application of humanoid robots in intelligent manufacturing, but also drive the upgrade of new industrialization from "semi-flexible manufacturing" to "fully flexible intelligent manufacturing."
Previous Highlights
Qiming Perspectives | Duane Kuang: Two Major Investment Opportunities Worth Watching
Qiming Perspectives | Alex Zhou: Four Key Focus Areas in Technology and Consumer Sectors for 2025
Qiming Venture Partners was founded in 2006. The firm currently manages 11 USD funds and 7 RMB funds, with total assets under management reaching $9.5 billion. Since its inception, Qiming Venture Partners has focused on investing in outstanding early- and growth-stage companies in the Technology and Consumer (T&C) and Healthcare sectors.
To date, Qiming Venture Partners has invested in over 580 high-growth innovative companies, of which more than 210 have gone public on the New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited, Shanghai Stock Exchange, and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, or exited through M&A and other means. Over 80 portfolio companies have become recognized unicorns or super-unicorns in their respective industries.
Many Qiming Venture Partners portfolio companies have grown into the most influential players in their fields, including Xiaomi (01810.HK), Meituan (03690.HK), Bilibili (NASDAQ:BILI, 09626.HK), Zhihu (NYSE:ZH, 02390.HK), Roborock (688169.SH), UBTECH (09880.HK), WeRide (NASDAQ:WRD), Gan & Lee Pharmaceuticals (603087.SH), Tigermed (300347.SZ, 03347.HK), Zai Lab (NASDAQ:ZLAB, 09688.HK), CanSino Biologics (688185.SH, 06185.HK), Schrödinger (NASDAQ:SDGR), APT Medical (688617.SH), Sanyou Medical (688085.SH), AmoyDx (300685.SZ), Berry Genomics (000710.SZ), Sinocelltech (688520.SH), Yuanxin Technology, Caidya, Belief BioMed, and Biren Technology.