Chinese EV giant BYD (HKEX: 1211) has confirmed to China Securities Journal that it will unveil its first humanoid robot this month at its Di Space venues, becoming the latest Chinese automaker to move formally into embodied artificial intelligence. The reveal is set to happen in Zhengzhou, where the Di Space account teased a poster with the line "maybe when you walk closer, it moves slightly" — hint that visitors will meet a working prototype, not a slideshow.
An automaker's roots meet embodied AI
BYD executive vice president Stella Li has spent 2026 telegraphing the pivot. She has argued that the competition around humanoids will be decided by manufacturing capacity as much as software, and that the underlying discipline — drive-train integration, motor control, sensor fusion, over-the-air updates — overlaps directly with automotive engineering. The company set up a dedicated embodied-AI team inside its 15th Business Division in late 2024, and Li has said BYD wants to keep two or three humanoids inside every dealership within a couple of years to demonstrate cars — while stressing they will not replace human sales staff.
An open-platform business model
Li has floated an open-platform approach in which BYD builds both in-house robots and models co-developed with partners, mirroring the way BYD already contract-manufactures batteries and vehicle platforms for other brands. That would slot the company into a market where Leapmotor just stood up its Lingsheng robotics subsidiary, SoftBank is chasing a majority stake in 1X Technologies, Xpeng plans mass production of its Iron humanoid by year-end, and Chery-backed Aimoga is already selling consumer humanoids.
The China humanoid race is now industrial
The Di Space showing is less about a single product spec sheet than about signalling BYD's manufacturing muscle can be pointed at humanoids on a scale the sector has not yet seen from a Chinese automaker. SAIC-GM has deployed wheeled humanoids on battery assembly lines; Beijing's World Humanoid Robot Games just saw sprint records fall to Tiangong Ultra and Honor's Lightning. For BYD, the strategic prize is not selling dealership greeters — it is claiming a share of the physical-AI stack while its car business rides through a slower H1.
Reporting based on coverage from China Securities Journal, CnEVPost, SCMP and Interesting Engineering.