The spring of 2026 has arrived earlier than usual for China's embodied artificial intelligence sector. On March 2nd, Galaxy General Robotics announced the completion of a new funding round totaling 2.5 billion yuan. The investor consortium included the National Artificial Intelligence Industry Fund (Phase III of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund), China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), CITIC Investment Holdings, Bank of China, SAIC Motor's financial arm, China Creation Ventures, E-Town Capital, Future Industry Investment, Kunpeng Fund, Wuxi Venture Capital, and Fujian Industry Investment, among others. Several existing shareholders also participated with additional investments.

This funding announcement comes just two months after the company disclosed its previous round of over $300 million (approximately 2.1 billion yuan). The participation of Phase III of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund through its first move in the embodied AI space, along with the entry of major state-owned enterprises like Sinopec and Bank of China, signals deep strategic positioning by national-level investors in the embodied intelligence field.

Since its establishment in May 2023, Galaxy General Robotics has secured the highest cumulative funding in China's embodied AI sector within less than three years, maintaining a leading valuation position throughout this period.

The company, founded by 34-year-old Peking University professor Wang He together with industry expert Yao Tengzhou, has managed to secure substantial funding rounds despite ongoing capital market challenges. The robot that shared the stage with comedians Shen Teng and Ma Li during the recent Spring Festival Gala, demonstrating walnut-handling skills, represents the technological capabilities underpinning this success.

The latest investment round represents more than just corporate development for Galaxy General Robotics—it signals the embodied intelligence sector's entry into a nationally strategic narrative phase.

Policymakers have elevated embodied AI to strategic national importance. The 2025 Government Work Report explicitly called for "cultivating future industries including embodied intelligence," with cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou subsequently launching specialized action plans.

Industrial capital is increasingly replacing financial capital as the dominant investment force. The evolution of Galaxy General's investor base—from early venture capital firms to industrial giants like Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.,Ltd. (CATL), SAIC Motor, and BAIC Group, and now to state-backed funds—demonstrates this shift clearly. Sinopec's investment suggests its tens of thousands of Easy Joy convenience stores could become deployment scenarios for Galaxy General's technology, while CITIC Group's participation opens possibilities in advanced manufacturing bases and commercial real estate.

According to China Academy of Information and Communications Technology data, China's embodied AI and robotics sector attracted total funding of 73.5 billion yuan by December 2025. However, industry consolidation is accelerating despite this investment surge. Third-party statistics indicate that over 20 robotics companies globally faced bankruptcy or business divestiture in the past year.

Industry trends show resources, capital, and talent concentrating toward leading enterprises. Statistics indicate seven companies in China's embodied AI sector have reached valuations exceeding 10 billion yuan, including Unitree Robotics, Zhiyuan Robotics, Galaxy General Robotics, and Xinghai Tu, marking the industry's entry into a new phase of clustered unicorn development.

The story of Galaxy General Robotics begins with two founders from different backgrounds who demonstrate strong complementary strengths. Chief Technology Officer Wang He represents the academic entrepreneur archetype. Born in 1992, he graduated from Tsinghua University's Department of Electronics and pursued doctoral studies at Stanford University under Professor Leonidas J. Guibas, becoming one of the earliest researchers globally focusing on end-to-end embodied large models.

During his time at Stanford, Wang witnessed the emergence of AI's evolution from virtual intelligence toward physical intelligence. In 2021, he returned to China to join Peking University's Center on Frontiers of Computing Studies, establishing the EPIC Lab (Embodied Perception and Interaction Laboratory) and forming an embodied intelligence research center at Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence.

Wang's co-founder Yao Tengzhou represents the opposite pole. A graduate of Beihang University's Robotics Institute where he studied under renowned robotics expert Professor Wang Tianmiao, Yao previously worked at the Shanghai R&D center of industrial robotics giant ABB, bringing substantial hardware engineering and mass production experience.

The combination of Wang's顶尖 academic background and Yao's industrial engineering capabilities represents a rare partnership in today's embodied AI startup landscape.

Galaxy General Robotics established its headquarters in Beijing's Haidian District upon its formal incorporation in May 2023. The company adopted a "brain-first, body-pragmatic" technical roadmap from inception.

At that time, the dominant narrative in humanoid robotics focused on bipedal locomotion. Competitors globally demonstrated running, jumping, and backflipping robots to showcase motion control capabilities. However, Wang's team concluded that walking ability wasn't the primary commercial bottleneck, identifying instead the robot's "brain"—specifically generalized grasping, autonomous decision-making, and physical world interaction capabilities—as the critical challenge.

"We don't pursue human-like walking for showmanship, but focus on equipping robots with a super AI brain that understands the world and operates flexibly," Wang later explained in an interview.

This strategic direction led Galaxy General to adopt a wheeled chassis with folding legs, prioritizing mobility stability while concentrating R&D resources on coordinating "hand, eye, and brain" capabilities. The selection for this year's Spring Festival Gala positioned the robot specifically as a "working robot," clearly indicating its commercial orientation.

If technical strategy determines how far Galaxy General can advance, funding pace determines how fast it can progress. The company's funding history resembles a blitzkrieg campaign—approximately one round every six months, each raising billions of yuan, with every round oversubscribed.

Just one month after establishment in June 2023, Galaxy General completed its seed round from investors including Matrix Partners and BlueRun Ventures.

In June 2024, the company secured 700 million yuan in Series A funding, setting a record for that year's Series A rounds. Investors included strategic and industrial players like Meituan and BAIC Group, alongside leading institutions such as Qiming Venture Partners and IDG Capital.

November 2024 saw the company complete 500 million yuan in strategic funding from SAIC Motor, Hong Kong Investment Company HKIC, and Shenzhen Capital Group, among others.

The true turning point arrived in 2025 when Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.,Ltd. (CATL) entered the picture. In June 2025, Galaxy General announced over 1.1 billion yuan in Series B funding led by CATL, with participation from China Development Bank Capital, Beijing Robotics Industry Fund, and GGV Capital. This marked CATL's first major investment in an embodied AI company, making Galaxy General the exclusive robotics firm in its portfolio.

CATL's investment decision followed extremely rigorous due diligence covering nearly all leading market projects. The decisive factor was Galaxy General's demonstrated deployment capability in industrial settings—its heavy-duty industrial robot Galbot S1 had achieved fully autonomous operation in CATL's complex battery factory environments, integrating into formal production cycles.

In December 2025, Galaxy General again broke the embodied AI single-round funding record: over $300 million (approximately 2.1 billion yuan), achieving a post-money valuation exceeding 20 billion yuan. This round was led by China Mobile's industrial chain fund, with participation from CICC Capital, China Media Group's融媒体基金, Suzhou Venture Group, and international institutions from Singapore and the Middle East.

The March 2nd, 2026 announcement of 2.5 billion yuan in funding represents the largest embodied AI investment to date that year, marking Phase III of the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund's inaugural move into the embodied AI sector.

The 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala served as Galaxy General's breakthrough moment from industry circles to national recognition. In the holiday microfilm, Galaxy General's "Galbot" robot performed five precision tasks alongside Shen Teng and Ma Li: handling walnuts, collecting glass fragments, retrieving shelf items, folding clothes, and skewering sausages.

Unlike previous gala robots that executed pre-programmed routines, Galbot demonstrated fully autonomous perception, real-time decision-making, and dynamic execution—all operations were independently performed by its self-developed "Galaxy Star Brain" system rather than following preset programs.

This capability stems from Galaxy General's core technical barrier: the world's first end-to-end embodied large model integrating "cerebrum-cerebellum-neural control" within a unified architecture. While most industry approaches separate task planning, motion control, and dexterous manipulation development, leading to interface incompatibilities and signal degradation, Galaxy General's AstraBrain platform connects multimodal perception through underlying motor control, achieving full-body coordination and sophisticated hand manipulation integration.

If technology constitutes Galaxy General's moat, commercial deployment represents its core qualification for national-level endorsement. The company has established a three-pillar commercialization matrix spanning industrial manufacturing, new retail, and healthcare.

In industrial manufacturing, Galaxy General remains the only humanoid robotics company achieving regular operation within CATL's facilities. Its heavy-duty industrial robot Galbot S1 features 50kg maximum arm loading capacity, meeting industrial standards for stable operation in challenging conditions including dust, vibration, and temperature variations.

Beyond CATL, Galaxy General has established partnerships with global manufacturing leaders including Bosch, Toyota, BAIC Group, and SAIC Motor, accumulating orders for thousands of units. In December 2025, the company signed a strategic agreement with Baita Precision Engineering to deploy over 1,000 robots within its ecosystem.

In new retail, Galaxy General has operationalized its "Galaxy Space Capsule" model. These intelligent retail units operated independently by Galbot robots handle complete processes including greeting customers, order taking, payment processing, and goods retrieval. Approximately 100 units have been deployed across nearly 20 cities including Beijing's Summer Palace, Old Summer Palace, Wangfujing, and Bird's Nest, Shanghai's White Magnolia, Shenzhen's Qianhai, Hangzhou's West Lake, Chengdu's Chunxi Road, and Xiamen's Gulangyu.

In instant retail and smart pharmacy sectors, Galaxy General has set industry records with over one year of continuous 24/7 operation in instant retail warehouses. The company currently operates smart retail pharmacies across 24 cities, each managing over 5,000 SKUs.

Healthcare collaborations with top-tier hospitals like Xuanwu Hospital and West China Hospital are advancing robot deployment in ward, pharmacy, and guidance scenarios. The team is testing robots for elderly blood pressure monitoring and cognitive assessments, gradually progressing toward nighttime ward rounds.

"We don't pursue robots that can perform 100 tasks, but focus on achieving industrial-grade standards for 10 tasks," Wang once defined the company's deployment strategy.

With fresh funding of 2.5 billion yuan, Galaxy General's next steps will focus on developing world-leading embodied AI large models while accelerating scaled deployment of benchmark projects, advancing embodied intelligence toward mass productivity.

Wang previously outlined a lengthy development path for general-purpose robots: first accumulating data for closed-loop scenario deployment, followed by hardware iteration, ultimately forming industry-specific solutions. Technically, Galaxy General still faces two major challenges: further breakthroughs in dexterous hands—where春晚 demonstration units lead the industry but require cost and reliability optimization—and decisions regarding bipedal morphology development timing, since current wheeled solutions face limitations in complex terrains like staircases.

Nevertheless, Galaxy General continues advancing industrial deployment rapidly along China's embodied AI track, guided by its "physical intelligence" direction.