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China

An aerial view of a city block with rooftops and roads partly swallowed by grey cloud.

China/feature

The lab is the new garage: how Tsinghua doctoral students became robotics founders

In 2025 and 2026 a run of doctoral and master's students raised hundreds of millions of yuan within months of registering. The pattern says more about funding than about genius.
A dark night skyline of Shenzhen with one tall spired tower rising above lit residential blocks and a lit highway curving below.

China/spotlight

Zerith, a Tsinghua lab project turned humanoid maker in Shenzhen

Min Yuheng, born in 2000, founded Zero Power Robotics a year into a master's degree. Its first wheeled humanoid shipped about three months later.
A bundle of blue-lit optical fibres fanning out from a bright tip against a dark, bokeh-soft background.

China/spotlight

OriginFlow reads muscle signals to teach robots to use their hands

Qin Shentao registered the company in his third year of a Tsinghua doctorate. Within nine months it had raised over 500 million yuan.
Close-up of a dark blue printed circuit board with gold solder pads and fine traces receding into soft focus.

China/spotlight

LatentVerse bets on a model that can feel what it grips

Hu Yucheng left ByteDance's Seed team in April and had a seed round of several hundred million yuan by August. The company builds software, not robots.