Zhiyuan Robot to Take Control of Shangwei New Materials; Magic Atom Unveils MagicBot Z1; xAI Officially Launches Grok 4 | Electromagnetic Wave Weekly Report

1. Zhiyuan Robotics to Take Control of Shangwei New Materials

On the evening of July 8, Shangwei New Materials announced that Zhiyuan Robotics intends to obtain control of the company through a holding platform jointly established by the company and its core team, using methods such as agreement transfer and tender offer. Upon completion of this equity transaction, the controlling shareholder of Shangwei New Materials will change to Shanghai Zhiyuan Hengyue Technology Partnership (Limited Partnership) (hereinafter referred to as "Zhiyuan Hengyue"), in which Zhiyuan Robotics and its management team hold shares jointly. The actual controller will change to Deng Taihua.

Some investors interpreted this equity transfer as Zhiyuan Robotics' backdoor listing. However, Shangwei New Materials recently responded that this action is merely an acquisition of controlling rights and does not constitute a backdoor listing as defined in the "Measures for Major Asset Restructuring."

It is worth noting that on July 11, the China Mobile Procurement and Bidding Network showed that Zhiyuan Robotics and Unitree Robotics were awarded the bid for the humanoid bipedal robot manufacturing service procurement project of China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd.

China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. is 100% owned by China Mobile Communications Limited. According to the previous selection announcement for this project, the total budget for the procurement project by China Mobile (Hangzhou) Information Technology Co., Ltd. is 124.05 million yuan (including tax). Package 1 is full-size humanoid bipedal robots, with a budget of 78 million yuan (including tax); the winning bidder is Zhiyuan Robotics. Package 2 includes small-size humanoid bipedal robots, computing power backpacks, and five-finger dexterous hands, with a budget of 46.05 million yuan (including tax); the winning bidder is Unitree Robotics.

2. Magic Atom Releases New Bipedal Humanoid Robot MagicBot Z1

On July 8, Magic Atom released the new bipedal humanoid robot, MagicBot Z1. The newly released MagicBot Z1 stands approximately 140 cm tall and weighs 40 kg. It features self-developed high-performance joint modules, 24 basic degrees of freedom, which can be expanded to up to 49 degrees of freedom. The maximum torque of the joints exceeds 130 N.m, enabling high-impact movements such as "recovery from large disturbance shocks" and "continuous rising after falling." The maximum range of motion for the joints can reach 320°, supporting difficult and large-amplitude actions such as "bending backward."

Regarding its physical body, the MagicBot Z1 utilizes high-strength aluminum alloy and engineering plastics. Through topological optimization and forward analysis design, it enhances the robot's physical robustness, improving resistance to drops and wear, thereby ensuring strong durability. Addressing heat dissipation challenges in compact humanoid robots, the MagicBot Z1 employs thermal simulation technology to continuously optimize the overall structure and airflow duct design. This keeps internal temperatures within an appropriate range, ensuring stable performance output over extended periods.

Furthermore, the MagicBot Z1 is equipped with sensors such as 3D LiDAR, depth cameras, and binocular cameras, and integrates Magic Atom's positioning and navigation system. This enables autonomous movement in complex scenarios. Developers can leverage these abundant sensors to rapidly build skill libraries for industry applications across various use cases, including family companionship, commercial presentations, and special operations, thereby enhancing the humanoid robot's intelligent operation and interaction capabilities.

3. xAI Officially Launches Grok 4

On July 10, xAI officially released Grok 4. During the launch, xAI's official account posted on X (formerly Twitter), declaring Grok 4 to be its latest and most powerful flagship model.

The Grok 4 series includes two versions: Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy, both of which are pure reasoning models. Grok 4 is the single-agent version, while Grok 4 Heavy is the multi-agent version, supporting four agents working simultaneously with a context window of up to 256k tokens. According to internal benchmark tests by xAI, Grok 4 achieved an accuracy rate of approximately 25% on Humanity’s Last Exam—a comprehensive authoritative exam covering mathematics, science, and languages, consisting of about 2,500 questions—using text input. This figure is comparable to the approximately 26% accuracy rate reported by OpenAI for its Deep Research tool in February this year. However, xAI emphasized that the testing methods were not entirely identical.

A key highlight of this Grok 4 release is the addition of five voice modes and a reaction speed nearly halved compared to earlier versions. To facilitate developer usage, Grok 4 introduces a dedicated programming model, Grok 4 Code, providing more professional support for code generation and debugging. xAI stated that this change will significantly boost developer efficiency to compete with the GPT-4 series and Meta's Gemini in the coding domain.

In xAI's description, Grok 4 not only boasts advantages of "stronger logical reasoning and more accurate language understanding," but also makes its first attempt to incorporate multimodal information processing, such as the potential for images and videos. This makes its application in social media content more timely and culturally sensitive.

Information from the launch event shows that Grok 4 is currently available only to paying users, with an API pricing of $3 per million input tokens and $15 per million output tokens. Grok 4 Heavy requires a SuperGrok Heavy subscription at $300/month to use. The price exceeds OpenAI's most expensive $200 Pro membership monthly fee.

4. Meituan invests again in a robotics company; Xinghai Tu completes over $100 million in A4 and A5 funding rounds

On July 9, Xinghai Tu (Beijing) Artificial Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xinghai Tu) announced the completion of strategic financing in its A4 and A5 rounds, with a combined total exceeding $100 million.

For the A4 round financing, lead investors were Capital Today and Meituan Dragon Ball, with co-investors including CICC Porsche Fund, Xianghe Capital, miHoYo, and Wuxi Venture Capital Group. For the A5 round, lead investors were Meituan Dragon Ball and Meituan Strategic Investment, with Beijing Robotics Fund making an over-allocation, Yizhuang State-owned Investment following up, while existing shareholders such as IDG Capital, Baidu Ventures, Kainos Capital, Capital Today, and Xianghe Capital continued to increase their investments.

As early as April 2025, Xinghai Tu announced the consecutive completion of its A2 and A3 series financing rounds, led by Kainos Capital, with industrial capital participants including Lenovo Capital and Haier Capital, while existing shareholders such as IDG Capital, Hillhouse Ventures, Baidu Ventures, and Tongge Capital followed up, with some existing shareholders fully subscribing or over-subscribing in multiple rounds.

In November 2024, Xinghai Tu announced the completion of over 200 million RMB in Pre-A round financing, led by Hillhouse Ventures (GL Ventures) and Ant Group, with co-investors including miHoYo, Wuxi Venture Capital Group, Tongge Capital, FunPlus, and existing shareholders, while Huaxing Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor.

In July 2024, Xinghai Tu announced the completion of industrial and commercial registration changes, marking another investment in embodied AI robots by the Beijing Robot Industry Development Investment Fund.

In February 2024, Xinghai Tu completed the second delivery of its angel round financing, raising a total of tens of millions of US dollars. This round was led by IDG Capital, with follow-on investments from SEE Fund, Baidu Ventures, GSR Ventures, and Qixi Investment.

5. Didi makes first investment in embodied AI; Xiaoyu Zhizao secures A+ round worth hundreds of millions

Recently, Beijing Xiaoyu Zhizao Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Xiaoyu Zhizao) completed an A+ round of financing worth over 100 million RMB. This round was led by Didi, with additional investment from the Beijing Information Industry Development Fund.

Prior to this financing round, Xiaoyu Zhizao had already completed three rounds of funding.

In March 2023, Xiaoyu Zhizao completed its seed round financing, receiving investment from Xiaomi Group and Yaru Angel Investment, founded by Professor Wang Tianmiao.

In June 2023, it completed its angel round financing, securing investment from the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence and Liu Wanqiang.

In November 2024, it completed its A-round financing round, receiving investments from iFLYTEK and the Beijing Information Industry Investment Fund.

Public information indicates that Xiaoyu Zhizao was founded in 2023 and is headquartered in Haidian District, Beijing. It is a general artificial intelligence robotics R&D and technology company. The founding team members come from tech giants such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Microsoft, and ByteDance, and graduated from universities including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nanjing University, and Beihang University. Xiaoyu Zhizao's founder and CEO, Qiao Zhongliang, is one of Xiaomi's founding members; he previously served as the head of MIUI R&D, overseeing products from MIUI 9 to MIUI 12. Co-founder Wang Wenlin formerly served as General Manager of Xiaomi's Software System Platform Department and led the development of 'Xiaomi Brain' and the IoT system.

6. Star Dynamics Raises Nearly 500 Million Yuan in Financing, Led by CDH VGC and Haier Capital

On July 7, humanoid robot company Star Dynamics announced the completion of nearly 500 million yuan in A-round financing. This round was jointly led by CDH VGC and Haier Capital, with follow-on investment from well-known financial institutions and industrial capital such as Houxue Capital, Huaying Capital, Xianghe Capital, and Fengli Intelligent. Existing shareholders including Qingshu Capital and Qingkong Fund continued to increase their stakes. Huaxing Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor for this round.

The funds raised will be used for the R&D and mass production implementation of humanoid robot hardware and software technologies, driving the high-speed operation of the closed-loop flywheel integrating 'model-body-scenario data.'

Public information shows that Star Dynamics was established in August 2023. Prior to this financing round, it had completed three rounds of funding.

In October 2023, Star Dynamics completed a seed-round financing worth tens of millions of yuan, jointly invested by Century Jinyuan and Nanjing Turing Phase I Venture Capital Partnership.

In January 2024, StarEra secured over 100 million yuan in angel-round funding, led by Lenovo Capital with participation from Jinding Capital and Qingkong Tiancheng, while existing shareholder Century Joyin made an over-subscribed follow-on investment.

In October 2024, StarEra completed a Pre-A round of nearly 300 million yuan, jointly led by Qiliu Capital, YJ Capital, and Alibaba, with participation from Cyzone Capital. Existing shareholders including Lenovo Capital, Century Joyin, Jinding Capital, Zeyu Capital, and Qingkong Tiancheng continued to increase their investments.

According to its official website, StarEra was incubated by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences at Tsinghua University and is the only humanoid robot enterprise with equity held by Tsinghua University. Founder Chen Jianyu serves as a doctoral supervisor and assistant professor at Tsinghua University. He holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley and studied under Professor Masayoshi Tomizuka, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, pioneer in electromechanical control, and founder of MPC algorithms. The StarEra team comprises members from renowned domestic and international institutions such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beihang University, Harbin Institute of Technology, UC Berkeley, and the National University of Singapore, as well as Fortune Global 500 companies. Currently, over 80% of the team are R&D personnel.