Tianji Intelligence completed a RMB 1 billion funding round in May 2026 and achieved a valuation of nearly RMB 10 billion, becoming a unicorn. Leveraging its deep industrial expertise and capability to deliver tens of thousands of units, the company focuses on overcoming the "force control execution bottleneck" in embodied intelligent robots and has become a core infrastructure provider in the global humanoid robot industry chain.Article author, source: Toutiao
In May 2026, Guangdong Tianji Intelligent Systems Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tianji Intelligent") announced the completion of its B and B+ rounds of financing, raising 1 billion RMB, with a post-money valuation nearing 10 billion RMB, officially becoming a unicorn.
This round of financing was co-led by Hillhouse Capital and Meituan Strategic Investment, with participation from leading institutions including Tencent, Gao榕 Capital, Green Pine Capital, and GGVC. Gaohu Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.
If you look at all the funding news in the embodied AI space over the past two years—Galaxy General’s 2.5 billion yuan, Unitree Technologies preparing for its IPO, Looj Robotics aiming for the Growth Enterprise Market, and Zidongbian Robotics securing a $1 billion A++ round backed by ByteDance and Sequoia—Tianji Intelligence’s $1 billion seems just another entry on this bustling list.
But if you look closely at its positioning, you’ll find it precisely fills the most overlooked yet critical gap in the current industry: while large models provide robots with a "cognitive brain," who provides them with a reliable "cerebellum" and "hands"?
Ji Tian Intelligence’s answer is straightforward: we don’t need to build the coolest bipedal robot—we aim to create embodied force-controlled manipulators. The company claims to be the world’s first brand to achieve mass production and delivery of force-controlled humanoid arms, delivering over 2,000 units within four months in 2025 and serving more than 100 clients; in the first quarter of 2026 alone, its backlog of orders has surpassed 10,000 units, with customers spanning 45 humanoid robot OEMs and embodied AI unicorns worldwide.
Tianji Intelligence was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in Songshan Lake, Dongguan—a region once renowned as the headquarters of Huawei’s consumer business and now one of the most concentrated areas for robotics industries in the Pearl River Delta. The company’s legal representative and chairman, Chen Xi, is the daughter of Chen Qixing, founder of the listed company Changying Precision (300115.SZ), which remains a significant shareholder of Tianji Intelligence, holding approximately 27%.
The "background" is crucial. Tianji Intelligence is not an AI newcomer that emerged out of nowhere; it has been forged through real-world applications in industrial collaborative arms and 3C precision manufacturing. It has developed a comprehensive product portfolio of small- to medium-load robots (including SCARA and six-axis models) and independently developed the Tianji Fusion control system. Its products are deeply integrated into industries such as 3C, automotive electronics, new energy, medical, home appliances, and food. According to early public data, over 800 customers use Tianji products, with more than 10,000 robot units operating stably online.
But its true turning point was infusing industrial-grade quality control, hundreds of millions of force-control data points, and over 30,000 units of engineering experience into a new form—force-controlled humanoid dual arms.
It’s not about making the robot strike cool poses, but about enabling its “hands” to truly sense force, exert precise control, and work stably in uncertain environments. And this is exactly the biggest challenge when moving embodied AI from demos to real factories—where the “brain” knows what to grab, but the “hands” either crush the object when they apply force or freeze the moment they tilt slightly.
Tianji Intelligence’s ability to attract concentrated investment from top-tier capital is no accident—it has precisely aligned with the era’s momentum of China’s robotics industry upgrade and the large-scale deployment of embodied intelligence. 2026 is widely regarded by the industry as the “Year of Mass Production for Humanoid Robots,” as the global robotics sector undergoes a paradigm shift from “industrial automation” to “embodied intelligence.” Tianji Intelligence’s positioning and capabilities perfectly match the core demands of this industry evolution.
From an industry perspective, the global embodied intelligence sector is transitioning from the initial technology validation phase (“0 to 1”) into the stage of large-scale production (“1 to 100”). While rapid advancements in AI large models have addressed robots’ “cognitive decision-making” challenges, the “execution bottleneck” in the physical world remains the industry’s greatest obstacle—how robots can perform tasks stably, safely, and precisely is now the key determinant of the industry’s deployment speed. Tianji Intelligence focuses on motion control, force sensing, joint modules, and mass production delivery—core components that directly solve this bottleneck. Its role is akin to that of chip and operating system providers during the smartphone era, serving as infrastructure providers for the embodied intelligence value chain.
According to available information, the global robotics market size is expected to exceed RMB 1.5 trillion in 2026, with the industrial robotics segment surpassing RMB 150 billion and the humanoid robotics segment reaching RMB 30–50 billion, representing over 500% year-over-year growth. Demand for “replacing humans with machines” in manufacturing continues to escalate, while robotic adoption in commercial applications is rapidly expanding. Coupled with the growing integration of embodied AI in home, healthcare, and logistics sectors, global demand for high-performance, low-cost, mass-producible robotic systems and core components is growing exponentially. Tianji Intelligence’s capability to deliver units at a ten-thousand-unit scale perfectly meets this surge in demand, positioning it as a core partner across the upstream and downstream supply chain.
Over the past two years, the most eye-catching players in the embodied AI space have always been bipedal humanoid robots capable of running and jumping—those super unicorns backed by major state funds. But looking back at every technological revolution—the Intel of the PC era, the ARM of the mobile internet era, the CATL of the electric vehicle era—the real winners were rarely the most glamorous end-brand names, but rather the infrastructure layers that enabled everyone to move forward.
For investors, positioning yourself in Tianji Intelligence today is not about investing in a robotics company—it’s about investing in the future of embodied AI in China and in a historic industrial era that will move from the laboratory to the world.