China has minted another embodied-AI unicorn. PsiBot, the Shanghai startup also known as Lingchu Intelligence, is close to finalizing a round of nearly $100 million at a $1.48 billion valuation, Bloomberg reported July 23 — led not by a VC fund but by carmaker Chery Automobile.
World models, not chatbots
Founded in 2024, PsiBot builds world models — AI that helps robots and self-driving cars perceive and act in physical surroundings. Its models learn from real-world data gathered through bespoke hardware, from sensor-laden gloves to humanoid robots; the company is known for dexterous-manipulation work. Founder Viktor Wang calls world models "more consequential than the large language models and chatbots."
The backers
Alongside Chery: Lens Technology, the sensor and glass maker supplying Apple and Tesla. Total funding since inception now runs to about $300 million.
The team
Wang (PhD, George Washington University; ex-BlackBerry and JD.com) is joined by Alibaba and Tencent robotics veteran Chai Xiaojie, Peking University assistant dean Yang Yaodong, and Chen Yuanpei, a Stanford visiting scholar advised by Fei-Fei Li.
The road map
Pilots are live with a major Chinese logistics vendor and one of the world's largest fiber-optic cable makers. Wang predicts embodied AI's "GPT-2 moment" within two years and plans to collect one million hours of real-world data this year — the fuel every world-model lab is now racing to stockpile. Bloomberg cautions the deal is close but not signed, and terms could still change. Chery — China's biggest vehicle exporter — extends a pattern of Chinese carmakers seeding embodied-AI labs the way US automakers once seeded self-driving startups.