Alibaba, Tencent Lead Shift to Embodied AI for Robotics

Chinese tech companies are rapidly shifting their focus from digital chatbots to physical autonomous systems. Alibaba and Tencent are leading this pivot, deploying artificial intelligence models directly into robots. Investors see embodied AI and autonomous agents as a major growth area. Alibaba's new Qwen3.7-Max model can act as a digital brain, controlling robots for tasks like navigation and obstacle avoidance. They've also released other AI models specifically for robotics, including a gripper agent and a vision-language system. Meanwhile, embodied AI start-up Zeroth integrated Tencent's OpenClaw AI agent into its M1 humanoid robot. This allows the robot to interpret human speech and immediately translate it into physical movements. This move highlights an evolution in AI development, extending its capabilities beyond the digital world into physical interaction. This shift could bring more advanced robotic applications into our daily lives.