China Recap is a weekly roundup tracking Chinese companies expanding abroad, covering market entries, funding rounds, product launches, and global partnerships.
China’s corporate globalization strategy is evolving fast. Industry giants are rewriting the global playbook, while a new generation of companies charts fresh paths overseas.
China Recap tracks both—focusing on strategic expansion, brand building, and localized operations—to help readers make sense of shifting trends and understand how Chinese firms are reshaping their global approach.
This edition highlights China’s advances in artificial and embodied intelligence, as humanoid robots move toward commercialization and AI infrastructure and applications expand in function and capacity.
Meituan debuts agentic AI app for food delivery
Meituan has launched Xiaomei, an app powered by its LongCat large model, to strengthen its food delivery and local services. Xiaomei uses AI agents to let users order meals by voice and book restaurants. Shares rose in Hong Kong after the rollout, which comes as Alibaba and JD.com escalate competition in China’s delivery market. —Bloomberg
UBTech secures “world’s largest” robot order
UBTech Robotics has won a RMB 250 million (USD 35 million) contract for its Walker S2 humanoid robots, which it described as the “world’s largest order” of its kind. Deliveries will begin this year, and the deal includes operational support services. The Hong Kong-listed firm did not name the client. —Nikkei Asia
Alibaba, Baidu reduce reliance on Nvidia
Alibaba and Baidu have reportedly begun using self-designed chips to train AI models, partly replacing Nvidia hardware. Alibaba has applied its chips to smaller models, while Baidu is testing its Kunlun P800 for Ernie. The shift reflects US export curbs and Beijing’s push for tech self-sufficiency, though both firms still rely on Nvidia for top-tier models. —The Information
Ant Group unveils first humanoid robot
Ant Group has unveiled its first humanoid robot, R1, at a Shanghai tech conference, highlighting its shift toward AI-powered robotics. Designed to handle tasks from cooking to medical assistance, the R1 runs on Ant’s in-house large model and reflects its strategy to scale AI assistant use across China. —Bloomberg
China narrows AI gap with US
China has reportedly narrowed its gap in AI development with the US to about three months, driven by rapid iteration, open-source model advances, and strategic chip reserves, according to CITIC CLSA. However, it still lags in advanced semiconductor production, which remains a longer-term hurdle that constrains progress in cutting-edge AI capabilities. —SCMP
China’s Unitree eyes RMB 50 billion IPO
Unitree Robotics is reportedly preparing to file for an IPO in the final quarter of 2025, targeting a valuation of up to RMB 50 billion (USD 7 billion). Already profitable and active in factory deployments, Unitree could become one of the first humanoid robotics firms to go public. —CNBC
ByteDance launches Seedream 4.0
ByteDance’s Seed team has released Seedream 4.0, a multimodal AI model for text-to-image generation and editing. It supports 4K output, faster inference, visual signal control, and in-context reasoning. Now live via Dreamina, Doubao, and Volcano Engine, the unified system has shown notable performance across creative tasks.
Tencent’s CodeBuddy IDE goes global in open beta
Tencent has released its AI CLI tool, CodeBuddy Code, and launched the global open beta of CodeBuddy IDE. The move positions Tencent Cloud as China’s first provider to support AI-driven coding across plugin, IDE, and CLI formats. Developers can use natural language in the terminal to automate tasks like refactoring, testing, and deployment. —IT Zhijia
Alibaba Cloud leads investment in X Square Robot
Alibaba Cloud has led a RMB 1 billion (USD 140 million) Series A+ funding round for Shenzhen-based X Square Robot, marking its first investment in embodied intelligence. Other investors that took part include CAS Investment, China Development Bank Capital, HongShan, Meituan, and Legend Capital. The funds will support training of foundation models and hardware development. —SCMP
That wraps up this edition of China Recap. If your company is expanding internationally, we’d love to hear about your latest milestones. Get in touch to share your story.