Unitree Tech C-Round Funding; Huawei Launches HarmonyOS 6; China Apple AI Accelerates | Radio Weekly

Huawei Developer Conference Opens, HarmonyOS 6 Arrives

On June 20, at the 2025 Huawei Developer Conference (HDC), Huawei officially launched the HarmonyOS 6 Developer Beta and showcased the latest progress of its ecosystem. Currently, HarmonyOS 5 covers more than forty Huawei terminal devices, with over nine thousand applications participating in more than seventy system-level innovations. Meanwhile, more than thirty thousand HarmonyOS applications and meta-services are under accelerated development, significantly expanding the scale of the ecosystem.

HarmonyOS 6 introduces a new interconnection architecture that reduces latency between devices. Users can use the 'Tap' feature to quickly transfer images and videos between phones and computers. The conference also released the HarmonyOS AI Agent Framework (HMAF), promoting the development of the AI ecosystem, supporting autonomous decision-making and group collaboration, and helping human-computer interaction evolve toward LUI.

To support developers, HarmonyOS 6 provides advanced tools such as DevEco CodeGen, which leverages AI to improve development efficiency by over thirty percent. Huawei promotes open-source collaboration by adapting mainstream cross-platform frameworks for HarmonyOS, supporting one-time development with multi-device deployment. Additionally, Huawei has invested one hundred million yuan in the HarmonyOS Starlight Plan to encourage innovation among campus developers, and the conference will host hundreds of technical forums and exchange events.

The rapid growth of the HarmonyOS ecosystem highlights Huawei's strength in technological innovation, providing a collaborative open platform for global developers and driving the future development of intelligent devices and applications.

Unitree Robotics C-Round Funding Secured, with BAT and China Mobile All In, Valuation Surpasses 10 Billion Yuan

On June 19, according to a report by WanDian Technology, Unitree Robotics has recently completed its Series C financing round, which was launched late last year. The round was jointly led by funds under China Mobile, Tencent, Jin Qiu, Alibaba, Ant Group, and Geely Capital, while most of Unitree's existing shareholders also participated. Unitree's pre-money valuation currently exceeds 10 billion yuan.

In fact, Unitree Robotics' Series C funding round began as early as late last year. Over the past six months, Unitree gained widespread popularity on the CCTV Spring Festival Gala stage and underwent a series of corporate restructuring events.

According to a report from "Wan Dian Technology," in early January this year, China Mobile, Ant Group, and several large industrial parties were actively negotiating, with several major potential investors planning to contribute between 100 million and 300 million yuan. However, after entering February this year, Unitree's post-Series C valuation gradually increased, and its financing structure also changed accordingly. "Wan Dian Technology" cited information from multiple sources indicating that some potential industrial investors who originally hoped to participate in the Series C financing later purchased some of Unitree's existing shares.

According to information on public platforms, since its establishment in 2016, Unitree Robotics has completed a total of 11 funding rounds. Well-known investment institutions such as Sequoia Capital China, Shunwei Capital, Meituan Dragon Ball, and the Beijing Robot Industry Development Investment Fund have all invested in Unitree Robotics.

In terms of products, Unitree Robotics started with quadruped robot dogs and has since launched multiple general-purpose humanoid robots. It also introduced key robotic components such as robotic arms, 4D LiDAR, and dexterous hands. Just recently on May 30, Unitree announced it would release a "26 joint DOF (62+2+52+2)" bipedal humanoid robot product, priced at several thousand US dollars (tens of thousands of RMB).

This means that after Unitree Robotics lowered the price of humanoid robots to 99,000 RMB last May, new models will be even more affordable, making the integration of humanoid robots into daily life and production an increasingly realistic dream.

Flexiv Announces Completion of Series C Funding Round Worth Hundreds of Millions of US Dollars

On June 23, Flexiv announced the completion of a Series C funding round worth hundreds of millions of US dollars. The Series C investment was jointly led by Yonggui Fund and GF Xinde, with participation from Hongtai Fund and Huakong Fund, among others. Existing investors GGV Capital, eGarden Ventures, and Mfund Magnitude Capital continued to invest. The funds raised will be primarily used for capacity expansion, research and development, and ecosystem expansion.

Founded in 2016, Flexiv is a general-purpose intelligent robotics company established by core members of Stanford University's Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. Flexiv created a new category called 'adaptive robots,' centered on the concept of 'anthropomorphism.' It abstracts human 'tactile sense' into force-control capabilities and transforms 'hand-eye coordination' behavioral patterns into a hierarchical intelligent system that endows robots with generalized operational abilities, significantly enhancing their ability to handle complex working conditions, as well as the universality and adaptability of processes.

While focusing on core technology R&D, Flexiv actively participates in industry standard construction. The national standard 'Technical Requirements for Robot Adaptive Capabilities,' which it led in formulating, has been officially released, further promoting the systematic construction of technical standards and capability assessment systems for this new category of adaptive robots.

In terms of business, Flexiv has served dozens of global top-tier clients, achieving smart manufacturing upgrades in over a hundred core process links across industries such as consumer electronics, automotive and home appliances, food and agriculture, biomedicine, aerospace, and new energy. It has accumulated highly valuable implementation cases, achieving scaled applications in complex tasks like polishing and grinding, plug-and-play assembly, and food processing. In terms of its ecosystem, Flexiv has established close collaborations with system integrators and university research institutions, building a solid and scalable commercial foundation.

At last week's Huawei HDC event, Flexiv demonstrated scenarios using robotic arms for packaging box assembly based on its CloudRobo Embodied AI platform. On-site, the robotic arms completed multiple procedures, including fiber coiling, material handling (loading and unloading), and terminal insertion.

Tongyi Qianwen Open-Sources 32 Qwen3 MLX Models, Accelerating the Landing of Apple AI in China

On June 16, Tongyi Qianwen announced that the entire Qwen3 series is now compatible with MLX. MLX is an open-source framework for machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) development launched by Apple in 2023, specifically optimized for Apple Silicon chips.

MLX makes it more convenient for developers to build lightweight models on Macs and deploy them directly to devices such as iPhones and iPads. Tongyi Qianwen has released fully optimized versions of all Qwen3 series models based on the MLX framework. Each model features four different precision quantization versions: 4-bit, 6-bit, 8-bit, and BF16. In other words, a total of 32 official Qwen3 MLX models have been open-sourced simultaneously.

Now, from the Mac Pro and Mac Studio to the Mac mini and MacBook, and even to iPads and devices with smaller memory like the iPhone, deploying Qwen3 is easy. This means the implementation of Apple AI in mainland China will be accelerated.

1X Releases World Model 1XWM, Building a Bridge from the "Atomic World to the Bit World"

Embodied AI company 1X recently introduced an AI model called Redwood, designed specifically for the home humanoid robot NEO.

1XWM empowers robots to autonomously execute end-to-end mobile manipulation tasks, such as retrieving items at home, navigating through spaces, and opening doors. Trained on extensive real-world data, including both successful and failed attempts, Redwood enables robots to learn from every interaction with their environment and continuously improve performance. It demonstrates excellent generalization capabilities, handling various changes within tasks and even interacting with objects never seen before.

Additionally, Redwood achieves full-body control by integrating mobility and manipulation capabilities, enabling the robot to perform complex actions such as leaning or tilting its body for stability during tasks. Notably, Redwood runs entirely on the robot's onboard GPU, ensuring real-time performance without relying on external computing resources.

Currently, Redwood is being tested in the homes of 1X employees as a precursor to the company's large-scale deployment of NEO robots. 1X's vision is to create a rich labor supply through safe, intelligent humanoid robots, with Redwood serving as one of the key technologies to achieve this goal. In the future, 1X plans to expand Redwood to more households and continuously enhance its capabilities to handle a wider range of domestic tasks.