Wang Xingxing regrets not doing AI earlier; Unitree launches 'Star Dog'; iPhone 17 sales hit record | E-wave Weekly Report

1. Wang Xingxing regrets not doing AI in the past

On September 11, at the 2025 Bund Summit, Wang Xingxing, founder and CEO of Unitree Robotics, shared his latest views on AI, robot models, and hardware.

Wang Xingxing stated that his biggest regret was not working on AI earlier. However, recent developments in the AI field, including AI models for robots, have given him another opportunity to seize the AI era and enable AI to perform practical tasks. He noted that the domain of 'AI doing work' is still in a barren stage, and the eve of large-scale explosive growth has not yet arrived.

Regarding data, Wang Xingxing believes that issues with robot data collection and quality are significant. There are currently no standards for how to collect high-quality data or what level of quality should be achieved, leaving the field in a relatively ambiguous state.

On robot models and hardware, Wang Xingxing argued that current hardware is more than sufficient—even hardware from one or two years ago is adequate. The main challenge lies in the models themselves; their capabilities are insufficient to fully leverage the hardware. For instance, current models struggle to control dexterous hands effectively to perform more agile movements, which remains highly challenging in the AI field.

For more details, see Wang Xingxing's new perspectives on robots at the Bund Summit.

**2. Unitree doubles down on consumer-grade quadruped robots

On September 12, according to the Shanghai Securities News, the "Superstar Dog," jointly developed by Superstars Entertainment and Unitree Robotics, will make its public debut for the first time during the flower float parade at the opening ceremony of the Shanghai Tourism Festival on September 13.

From the video, it can be seen that the 'Superstar Dog' possesses certain companionship and social attributes. In terms of appearance, it has a shape similar to a puppy, with an overall light color tone and soft lines, giving it a very approachable look. Its detailed design is also quite exquisite; its drooping ears, black goggles, and silver collar give it a strong trendy toy IP feel. Moreover, the 'Superstar Dog' demonstrates some movements such as swaying its hips and jumping up and down, looking just as cute as a playful pet dog.

The "Star Dog," jointly created by Unitree Robotics and Star Dream, is another major achievement for the company in the consumer-grade quadruped robot market. Previously, both the Go1 and Go2 models featured a strong metallic mechanical aesthetic, so Unitree chose to break through via IP collaborations.

While Superstars Legend's main business is IP creation and operation as well as new retail, on July 30, the company announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Xingchuangyi Entertainment Co., Ltd., had signed a cooperation agreement with Hangzhou Unitree Robotics. The group and Unitree Robotics will become strategic partners globally, initially collaborating in the development and commercialization of quadruped robot dogs/robots featuring companionship and social attributes, jointly creating consumer-grade robot products with strong IP characteristics.

3. JD.com's iPhone 17 series sold out in under one minute, surpassing last year's total daily volume

At 1 a.m. Beijing Time on September 10, Apple officially unveiled new products including the iPhone 17 series and iPhone Air at its autumn event. Pre-orders will open at 8 p.m. on September 12, with general availability starting on September 19. In terms of pricing, the iPhone 17 starts at five thousand nine hundred ninety-nine yuan, the iPhone 17 Air at seven thousand nine hundred ninety-nine yuan, the iPhone 17 Pro at eight thousand nine hundred ninety-nine yuan, and the iPhone 17 Pro Max at nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine yuan.

A significant change is the rear camera layout of the iPhone 17 Pro series, which has shifted to a horizontal rectangular design. This launch event also introduced the new iPhone Air model, focusing on an ultra-thin and lightweight design at just 5.6 mm thick and weighing 165 grams.

Regarding specifications, the entire iPhone 17 lineup is equipped with the A19 series mobile chips, and the 128 GB version has been dropped across all models, with starting prices at 256 GB. Furthermore, the standard iPhone 17 finally features a 120 Hz high refresh rate display.

After pre-sales began at 8 PM on September 12, data from JD.com showed that the sales volume of the iPhone 17 series surpassed the entire previous year's total within just one minute of the pre-sale opening, setting a new sales record. Among them, the iPhone 17 256GB version saw sales significantly higher than the previous generation year-over-year, becoming the most popular model.

4. Self Variable Robotics Completes Nearly 1 Billion RMB Series A+ Financing

On September 8, Self Variable Robotics announced the completion of nearly 1 billion RMB in Series A+ financing. The round was led by Alibaba Cloud and Gaoke Investment, with participation from CDB Financial, Sequoia China, and Yingce Capital. Existing shareholder Meituan Strategic Investment increased its stake, while Legend Star and Junlian Capital continued their investment. The funds will be used for the continuous training of Self Variable's fully self-developed general Embodied AI foundation model and the research and iteration of hardware products.

In terms of models, Self Variable independently developed the 'WALL-A' series VLA (Vision-Language-Action) operation large model, constructing a unified framework for cognition and action.

In a unified representation space, the model simultaneously processes perception, reasoning, and action, performing cross-modal causal reasoning and action decisions directly, enabling robots to ultimately think and work like humans. Currently, the "WALL-A" model has demonstrated zero-shot generalization capabilities in some completely new task types that it has never been trained on.