Sitting in his new Beijing office, AI2 Robotics Founder and CEO Eric Guo wistfully reflected on fundraising challenges in China — and noted that U.S.-based humanoid rival Figure recently raised $1 billion in a single round, at a $39 billion valuation. That’s far more than what a Chinese robotics company can typically raise, he said. His strategy for growth? Do more with less. That means, for instance, developing a robotics AI model that uses less than 10% of the parameters required to train Alphabet’s RT-2 AI model, as laid out in one of Guo’s widely cited papers. Guo, who holds a Ph.D. from Purdue University, previously worked at Microsoft, smartphone maker Oppo and electric vehicle company Xpeng. It mirrors how DeepSeek and other Chinese players have slashed AI costs for users, and allowed them to claim AI development budgets far below OpenAI’s estimated spending, which has exceeded $100 billion.

Full report : PitchBook states US AI and robotics VC deals are up over 4x since 2023 to $160 billion+ so far in 2025, while comparable China deals are just $10 billion+, up from $9.24 billion in 2023.