JCN Newswire

ベア・ロボティクス、キニシ・ロボティクスを買収し、エンドツーエンドの物理AIロボティクスプラットフォームを完成させる

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0900

カリフォルニア州レッドウッドシティ, 2026年6月22日 - (JCN Newswire) - ベア・ロボティクス（Bear Robotics）は本日、キニシ・ロボティクス（Kinisi Robotics）を買収する最終契約を締結したと発表した。この取引により、キニシはベアの一員となる。本取引の完了に伴い、キニシ社のヒューマノイドロボット「KR1」、ブリストルを拠点とするエンジニアリングチーム、およびフィジカルAI技術がベア・ロボティクスに統合され、ベアのエンドツーエンドのフィジカルAIロボティクスプラットフォームが完成することになる。本取引は数日中に完了する見込みである。

Bear社は、世界で最も広く導入されているサービスロボットのフリートを構築しており、世界中で16,000台以上が商用サービスに導入されています。Bear社のロボットは、エージェント型マルチロボットオーケストレーションを通じて、すでに1つの協調的なチームとして連携しており、固定された軌道やルートに従うのではなく、混雑し変化の激しい空間内を自由に移動しています。多くのロボット企業は依然として、実証実験から製品化への移行を目指している段階ですが、ベアはすでにその段階に達しており、ロボット、顧客、製造体制、そして実運用データがすべて整っています。キニシは、そこに欠けていたピース――ロボットが物体を扱うことを可能にするAI――を補完します。これにより、同じロボット群が、移動や清掃にとどまらず、ピッキング、仕分け、そして肉体労働にも対応できるようになります。

ベアがキニシを買収する理由

キニシは創業以来、ベアの生産ナビゲーション・スタックを基盤として事業を展開してきました。これは、ベアの商用フリートを支えるのと同じ技術です。この技術的な関係により、ベアはキニシのエンジニアリングの質、KR1マニピュレーション・プラットフォームの成熟度、そしてフィジカルAI研究の深さを、他社にはないほど明確に把握することができました。

また、この関係こそが、両社が手を組むことでより強くなる理由を示しています。これは、他社の機械にロボットアームを後付けするようなものではありません。ベアの配送ロボット、床清掃ロボット、そしてキニシとの協業によるヒューマノイドはすべて、単一のプラットフォーム上で動作し、異なるベンダーの製品を寄せ集めたパッチワークではなく、協調した一つのチームとして機能します。両社は互いに相乗効果を生み出しています。ベアのロボット群は数千カ所の拠点から絶え間なく実世界データを生成し、一方、キニシの実地型データ収集ツールは、低コストかつ迅速に操作事例を追加します。これにより、両社が単独で取り組むよりも速く、キニシのAIモデルを学習させることができます。ベアは、この一挙の取引によって、そうでなければ構築に数年を要したであろう操作技術と研究チームを一挙に獲得することになります。

また、この提携により、ベアは共同創業者であるブレナン・ピアース氏と再会することになります。ベアは、取引が完了次第、ブレナン氏と彼が率いるチームを再び社内に迎え入れることを楽しみにしています。

Kinisiの強み

• ヒューマノイドロボット「KR1」――産業、物流、ホスピタリティの各環境において、物体の把持、配置、仕分け、搬送を行うために設計された車輪付きヒューマノイドプラットフォーム。

• 独自開発の操作モデル — ビジョン・言語・アクション（VLA）モデルおよびロボット基盤モデル（RFM） — は、最新のAIインフラストラクチャスタック上に構築されており、模倣学習、強化学習、エージェント型タスク制御、および物体検出、位置特定、セグメンテーション、追跡、分類のためのコンピュータビジョンを網羅しています。

• 自社開発のグリッパーおよびエンドエフェクタの設計に加え、手による操作デモンストレーションを記録する、低コストでロボット非依存型のグローブ。これにより、トレーニングデータの収集をロボットの稼働時間から切り離し、モデルが学習するデモンストレーションの規模を拡大します。

• オックスフォード大学やケンブリッジ大学で高度な学位を取得した人材を含む、世界トップクラスの物理AIエンジニアおよび研究者チーム。

• ブリストルに欧州エンジニアリング拠点を設置し、既存のベイエリア事業に加え、英国市場への進出を拡大。

お客様およびパートナーの皆様への影響

買収完了までは、Bear RoboticsとKinisi Roboticsは引き続き別々の独立した企業として運営されます。当面の間、既存のお客様との関係、パイロットプロジェクト、評価、および各社の担当窓口については、変更はありません。

買収完了後、この買収により、Bear Roboticsのロボットが遂行できる業務の範囲が拡大されます。これは、Bear Roboticsのお客様がすでに信頼を寄せている同じプラットフォーム上で実現されます。Kinisiのお客様にとっては、Bear傘下においても担当窓口や進行中のパイロットプロジェクトが中断されることなく継続され、量産、フリート管理、導入サービス、カスタマーサポートを含むあらゆる展開において、Bearの事業規模を背景としたサポートが提供されます。

ブリストルオフィスは、Bearの戦略的エンジニアリング拠点として引き続き機能します。買収完了後、ブレン氏はChief Robotics Officer（最高ロボティクス責任者）としてBearの経営陣に加わり、KR1プラットフォームを統括しながら、引き続きKinisiのエンジニアリング組織を率いていきます。

Kinisi Roboticsの創業者兼CEO、ブレナン・ピアースからのメッセージ

「この契約の締結は、KinisiにとってもKR1にとっても、次なる正しい一歩です。私たちは創業当初から、Bear社のナビゲーション・スタックを基盤としてKinisiを構築してきました。それは、それが業界で最も強固な基盤であると確信していたからです。Bear社が他社にはない強みとして持つのは、すでに商用規模で稼働している真のフィジカルAIプラットフォーム――導入済みのロボット、企業顧客、製造現場、そしてクラウドオーケストレーション――です。「マニピュレーション」こそが欠けていた層であり、それをキニシが提供します。両社が協力して、単体のヒューマノイドロボットを孤立して開発するのではなく、統合されたマルチロボット自動化プラットフォームを完成させるのです。私たちがこれから作り上げるものに、大きな期待を寄せています。」

- ブレナンド・ピアース、キニシ・ロボティクス創業者兼CEO、ベア・ロボティクス最高ロボティクス責任者（契約締結に際して）

Bear Roboticsの創業者兼CEO、ジョン・ハからのメッセージ

「Bearは、ロボットを現実の世界で活用するために設立されました。私たちはそれを実現するためのプラットフォーム構築に長年にわたり取り組んできました。その結果、数千台のロボットが導入され、単一のクラウドオーケストレーション・スタック、実際の企業顧客、そしてそれらを支える製造サプライチェーンが確立されました。Kinisiは、そのプラットフォームを完成させるものです。KinisiのマニピュレーションAIは、当社のロボットが単に移動や配送を行うだけでなく、目の前の作業を実際に処理できるようになるための基盤となります。多くの企業がパイロット段階から製品化を目指している中、私たちは導入済みの商用ロボット群から、完全なフィジカルAI自動化へと拡大しています。KinisiチームがKR1で築き上げた成果、継続的な信頼を寄せてくださるお客様やパートナーの皆様、そしてこの新たな章を支えてくださる従業員や投資家の皆様に感謝申し上げます。これは、Bearにとってさらに大きな章の始まりです。」

- ジョン・ハ、Bear Robotics 創業者兼最高経営責任者

Bear Roboticsについて

Bear Roboticsは、ホスピタリティ業界における肉体的な負担を軽減することを目指した元Googleのエンジニアたちによって、2017年にシリコンバレーで設立されました。このアイデアは、創業者兼CEOのジョン・ハ氏が自ら経営するレストランで生まれたものです。それから9年、BearはそのアイデアをフルスタックのフィジカルAIプラットフォームへと発展させました。自社開発のロボット、自律的なマルチロボットオーケストレーション、そしてそれらが生成する実世界データにより、現在では北米、ヨーロッパ、アジアのホスピタリティ、医療、小売、物流、多階建て不動産の各分野において、日常的な肉体労働の自動化を実現しています。Bearの製品ファミリーには、Servi Plus、Servi Q、Servi Clean、Cartiが含まれます。詳細については、 www.bearrobotics.ai をご覧ください。

Kinisi Roboticsについて

Kinisiは、倉庫、工場、物流環境向けに実用的なヒューマノイドロボットを開発する、AIを活用したロボット企業です。当社の主力プラットフォームである「KR1」は、実績のある自律航行機能、精密な操作機能、そして独自のAI基盤モデルを組み合わせており、施設の改造やカスタムエンジニアリングを必要とせずに、人間のデモンストレーションからわずか1日で新しいタスクを学習することができます。KinisiはRaaS（Robotics as a Service）モデルを採用しており、企業顧客はソフトウェアのアップデート、メンテナンス、継続的なモデル改善がすべて含まれた状態で、迅速かつコスト効率良くロボットを導入できます。現在、Kinisiは製造、物流、小売業界の主要企業と有料のパイロットプログラムを実施中です。導入された各ロボットから、実環境でのパフォーマンスデータやデモンストレーションデータがKinisiの基盤モデルにフィードバックされ、学習効果が相乗的に高まることで、新たな導入ごとに前回の導入よりも迅速かつ高性能な運用が可能になります。Kinisiは、Bear Roboticsの元共同創業者であるブレン・ピアース氏によって設立され、英国ブリストルに本社を置いています。エンジニアリングチームには、ダイソン、アマゾン、ケンブリッジ大学、オックスフォード大学など、世界トップクラスの機関や企業から集まった人材が在籍しています。

メディアお問い合わせ先
ジェンナロ・ガロ（Bear Robotics マーケティング責任者）
press@bearrobotics.ai　

出典：Bear Robotics, Inc

Bear Robotics to Acquire Kinisi Robotics, Completing Its End-to-End Physical AI Robotics Platform

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0900

REDWOOD CITY, CA, June 22, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) - Bear Robotics today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kinisi Robotics, in a transaction that will make Kinisi part of Bear. On closing, Kinisi's KR1 humanoid robot, its Bristol-based engineering team, and its Physical AI capabilities will be integrated into Bear Robotics, completing Bear's end-to-end Physical AI robotics platform. The transaction is expected to close in the coming days.

Bear has built the world's most widely deployed fleet of service robots - more than 16,000 shipped into commercial service worldwide. Bear's robots already work together as one coordinated team through agentic multi-robot orchestration, moving freely through busy, changing spaces instead of following fixed tracks or routes. Most robotics companies are still trying to get from pilot to product; Bear is already there, with the robots, customers, manufacturing, and real-world data in place. Kinisi adds the missing piece - the AI that lets robots handle objects - so the same fleet can go beyond moving and cleaning to picking, sorting, and handling physical work.

Why Bear Is Acquiring Kinisi

Kinisi has been building on Bear's production navigation stack since the company was founded - the same technology that powers Bear's commercial fleet. That technical relationship gave Bear an unusually clear view into the quality of Kinisi's engineering, the maturity of its KR1 manipulation platform, and the depth of its Physical AI research.

It also shows why the two companies are stronger together. This isn't a robot arm bolted onto someone else's machines. Bear's delivery robots, floor cleaners, and - with Kinisi - humanoids all run on one platform and work as a single coordinated team, not a patchwork of products from different vendors. The two sides also feed each other: Bear's fleet produces a constant stream of real-world data from thousands of sites, while Kinisi's hands-on data-capture tools add manipulation examples cheaply and quickly - together training Kinisi's AI models faster than either company could alone. In one step, Bear gains the manipulation technology and the research team it would otherwise have spent years building.

It also reunites Bear with Brennand Pierce - a co-founder of Bear - and Bear looks forward to welcoming Bren and the team he has assembled back into the company once the transaction closes.

What Kinisi Brings to Bear

• The KR1 humanoid robot - a wheeled humanoid platform designed for picking, placing, sorting, and moving objects across industrial, logistics, and hospitality environments.

• Proprietary manipulation models - a vision-language-action (VLA) model and a robot foundation model (RFM) - built on a modern AI infrastructure stack, spanning imitation learning, reinforcement learning, agentic task control, and computer vision for object detection, localisation, segmentation, tracking, and classification.

• In-house gripper and end-effector design, plus a low-cost, robot-agnostic glove that captures manipulation demonstrations by hand - decoupling training-data collection from robot time and scaling the demonstrations the models learn from.

• A team of world-class Physical AI engineers and researchers, including talent with advanced degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge.

• A European engineering hub in Bristol, extending Bear's footprint into the United Kingdom alongside its existing Bay Area operations.

What This Means for Customers and Partners

Until closing, Bear Robotics and Kinisi Robotics continue to operate as separate, independent companies. Existing customer relationships, pilots, evaluations, and points of contact on each side continue unchanged in the interim period.

On closing, this acquisition will expand the range of work Bear's robots can do - on the same platform Bear customers already rely on. For Kinisi customers, your point of contact and your in-flight pilot will continue uninterrupted under Bear, with the operational scale of Bear behind every deployment, including production manufacturing, fleet management, deployment services, and customer support.

The Bristol office will continue as a strategic engineering hub for Bear. On closing, Bren will join Bear's leadership team as Chief Robotics Officer, continuing to lead the Kinisi engineering organisation with the KR1 platform under his direction.

A Note from Brennand Pierce, Founder and CEO of Kinisi Robotics

"Signing this agreement is the right next step for Kinisi and for the KR1. We built Kinisi on Bear's navigation stack from day one because we believed it was the strongest foundation in the industry. What Bear has that no one else does is a real Physical AI platform already operating at commercial scale - deployed robots, enterprise customers, manufacturing, and cloud orchestration. Manipulation is the missing layer, and that's what Kinisi brings. Together we're not building one humanoid in isolation; we're completing an integrated, multi-robot automation platform. I'm excited about what we're going to build."

- Brennand Pierce, Founder and CEO, Kinisi Robotics; Chief Robotics Officer, Bear Robotics (on closing)

A Note from John Ha, Founder and CEO of Bear Robotics

"Bear was built to put robots to work in the real world, and we've spent years building the platform to do it: thousands of robots deployed, one cloud orchestration stack, real enterprise customers, and a manufacturing supply chain behind them. Kinisi completes that platform. Its manipulation AI is the layer that lets our robots move from navigating and delivering to actually handling the work in front of them. Most companies are trying to get from a pilot to a product; we're expanding from a deployed commercial fleet into full Physical AI automation. I want to thank the Kinisi team for what they've built in the KR1, our customers and partners for their continued trust, and our employees and investors for backing this next chapter. This is the start of a much bigger chapter for Bear."

- John Ha, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bear Robotics

About Bear Robotics

Bear Robotics was founded in Silicon Valley in 2017 by former Google engineers who set out to take the physical strain out of hospitality - an idea that began in founder and CEO John Ha's own restaurant. Nine years later, Bear has grown that idea into a full-stack Physical AI platform: its own robots, agentic multi-robot orchestration, and the real-world data they generate - now automating everyday physical work across hospitality, healthcare, retail, logistics, and multi-story real estate in North America, Europe, and Asia. Bear's product family includes Servi Plus, Servi Q, Servi Clean, and Carti. Learn more at www.bearrobotics.ai.

About Kinisi Robotics

Kinisi is an AI-powered robotics company building practical humanoid robots for warehouses, factories, and logistics environments. Our flagship platform, the KR1, combines proven autonomous navigation, precise manipulation, and a proprietary AI foundation model that learns new tasks from human demonstration in a single day, without facility modifications or custom engineering. Kinisi operates on a RaaS model, enabling enterprise customers to deploy robots quickly and cost-efficiently, with full software updates, maintenance, and ongoing model improvements included. Kinisi is currently running paid pilot programs with leading companies across manufacturing, logistics, and retail. Every robot deployed feeds real-world performance and demonstration data back into the Kinisi foundation model, creating a compounding learning advantage that makes each new deployment faster and more capable than the last. Kinisi was founded by Bren Pierce, previous co-founder of Bear Robotics, and is headquartered in Bristol, UK, with engineering talent drawn from world-class institutions and companies including Dyson, Amazon, Cambridge, and Oxford.

MEDIA CONTACT
Gennaro Gallo, Head of Marketing, Bear Robotics
press@bearrobotics.ai

SOURCE: Bear Robotics, Inc

HKUST and CalmCar Establish the Physical AI Innovation Center, Ushering in a New Era of Physical Intelligence

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:38:00 +0900

HONG KONG, Jun 3, 2026 - (ACN Newswire) - The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Suzhou Calmcar Electronics Technology Co., Limited (CalmCar) yesterday officially signed a strategic agreement to jointly establish the Physical AI Innovation Center. The Center is dedicated to advancing full-stack physical AI technologies, addressing fundamental bottlenecks in current AI, including an insufficient understanding of the laws of the physical world, limited reasoning capabilities, and a lack of reliable support for action and decision-making.

The Center will build a new-generation physical AI technology foundation capable of understanding, predicting, reasoning, and decision-making, supporting strategic industries such as autonomous driving, robotics, and smart manufacturing, while helping position Hong Kong as a key strategic hub for national physical AI innovation.

Multidimensional Research Directions: Full-Stack Layout from Chips to Applications

The Center will pursue research covering chips and systems, foundational models and data, privacy protection and safety governance, as well as core application scenarios. By exploring and leveraging world models to build high-fidelity strategy validation and interactive reasoning capabilities, the Center aims to train AI in virtual environments before transferring capabilities to the real world-significantly improving AI‘s generalizability, interpretability, and reliability in complex and open environments, and building a long-term technical foundation for a wide range of intelligent applications.

The Center’s ambition is to become a global strategic hub for physical AI innovation, leading the development of industry benchmarks and open-source platforms, and cultivating internationally competitive talent in physical AI.

Based in Hong Kong, Serving the National “AI+” Strategy

The Center will actively serve the national “AI+” strategy, positioning itself with Hong Kong as its base, the Greater Bay Area as its hinterland, and the world as its stage. It strives to become a strategic highland for physical AI research in the Asia-Pacific region and an international hub for collaboration. The Center will establish end-to-end capabilities from fundamental research to industrial deployment, providing unified technical standards and common tools for the industry. Leveraging Hong Kong’s global connectivity and the Greater Bay Area’s comprehensive industrial supply chain, the Center will accelerate technology transfer and build a world-leading research and innovation center for physical intelligence.

World-Class Academic Leadership

The Center is led by Prof. GUO Song – Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, Foreign Member of the European Academy of Sciences (EU), IEEE Fellow, and Chair Professor in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST – who serves as its director. Prof. Guo has long been engaged in distributed computing, edge AI, and multi-modal foundation models, dedicated to solving the challenges of generalization and reliability of AI in real-world physical environments.

He is a recipient of the IEEE Edward J. McCluskey Technical Achievement Award, one of the highest honors in computer engineering, and is widely recognized as an international leader in the field. He also leads the Pervasive Intelligence Laboratory (PeiLAB), which has been based in Hong Kong for a decade and has produced substantial original achievements in physical world modeling, embodied reinforcement learning, and edge intelligent systems, providing a solid theoretical foundation for the Center’s research endeavors.

Prof. Guo Song remarked: “Our pioneering ‘Physical Alignment’ technology upgrades generative video models into interactive world models, marking a shift in AI from ‘seeing the world’ to ‘acting on the world.’ By enabling infinite trial and error in virtual spaces, we provide a new paradigm for behavior prediction and safety planning in next-generation autonomous driving.”

Prof. Zheng Weimin stated that physical AI will be a major strategic direction following general-purpose foundation models. He then presided over the handshake and group photo ceremony between the Strategic Advisory Committee and the Innovation Center, marking the field’s official entry into a new phase of industry-academia-research integration. He expressed hope that the Center will continue to make significant contribution to the national AI strategy.

The Center has invited Prof. ZHENG Weimin—Senior Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, 10th President of the China Computer Federation (CCF), and Professor at Tsinghua University—to chair its Strategic Committee. Prof. GUO Yike—Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering (UK) and the European Academy of Sciences (EU), and Provost of HKUST—serves as the University Advisor to the Center, providing strong support.

Other Strategic Committee advisors include Prof. Xuemin (Sherman) SHEN—Foreign Member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, and Professor at the University of Waterloo; Dr. Bai-ning GUO—Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, Microsoft Technical Fellow, Managing Deputy Director of Microsoft Research Asia, IEEE Fellow, and ACM Fellow; and Prof. David Atienza ALONSO — Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences, IEEE Fellow, ACM Fellow, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at EPFL, and Associate Vice President for Centers and Platforms at EPFL.

From Perception to Understanding: Driving the Evolution of Intelligent Systems

Unlike traditional AI that relies on massive data fitting, physical AI emphasizes a model’s ability to understand dynamic real-world laws and causal structures. Physical AI is driving intelligent systems beyond perception and recognition toward dynamic prediction, interactive reasoning, and autonomous decision-making grounded in physical consistency. As a key enabling technology, world models simulate and anticipate environmental dynamics, providing a foundation for policy learning and validation in complex scenarios while enhancing generalization and reliability in distributed settings.

Leveraging the Physical AI Innovation Center, CalmCar—as a co-founder of the Center— will take the lead in applying these technologies to autonomous driving, enabling vehicles not only to perceive their surroundings but also to understand physical causality and anticipate the evolution of traffic scenarios, thereby advancing from perception to cognition.

Looking ahead, the Center is committed to building partnerships with a broader range of industry partners, validating and refining physical AI technologies across diverse application scenarios, driving innovation in world model methodologies, and fostering the sustainable integration of physical AI technologies with the industrial ecosystem.

Unveiling Ceremony: Witnessed by Leaders from Government, Academia, and Industry

The unveiling ceremony brought together government leaders, leading academics, industry executives, and investment professionals. Representatives from HKUST and CalmCar’s founding team jointly unveiled the Center. Distinguished guests, including Mr. Duncan CHIU, Legislative Council Member (Technology & Innovation) of Hong Kong, and Mr. CHEN Xu, Executive Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Greater Bay Area Office, witnessed the launch of the initiative.

As a core strategic partner in establishing the Center, Lion X Ventures has been deeply involved in its preparation and ecosystem building throughout the process. Leveraging its industry resources, cross-border reach, and capital expertise, Lion X Ventures provides comprehensive support for the Center’s operations and development, laying a solid foundation for its long-term growth.

The high-caliber presence of leaders from government, academia, industry, and investment community, combined with the strategic support of top investment institutions, fully demonstrates the Center’s industry standing, resource depth, and strategic value. It also marks the official launch of a collaborative innovation ecosystem in the Greater Bay Area led by HKUST’s physical AI technologies.

The HKUST-CalmCar Physical AI Innovation Center inauguration ceremony

(From left to right: Ms. Diana WU, CEO of HSBC Hong Kong; Mr. Duncan CHIU, Legislative Council Member (Technology & Innovation) of Hong Kong; Mr. Terry TSANG, HKUST Court Member and Chairman of the Convocation, CEO of Madhead; Prof. ZHOU Xiaofang, Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST; Prof. ZHENG Weimin, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, former Chairman of the China Computer Federation, Professor at Tsinghua University; Mr. WANG Xi, Chairman and CEO of CalmCar; Prof. Guo Yike, Provost of HKUST; Prof. Tim CHENG, Vice-President for Research and Development of HKUST; Prof. Guo Song, Chair Professor of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at HKUST and Director of the Physical AI Innovation Center; Mr. CHEN Xu, Executive Deputy Director of the Guangzhou Greater Bay Area Office; Mr. Daniel KWAN, Global Head of Mid-Capital and Equity Investment at OCBC; Ms. GUO Yanni, CEO of Lion X Ventures)

Prof. Tim Cheng stated: “Physical intelligence will be a core force reshaping human society over the next decade. We have chosen this moment to fully commit to this direction—not merely to build a strong research organization, but to define a new research field from our own perspective. I believe that, years from now, when we look back on today, this will be remembered as an important moment in HKUST’s history.”

The gathering of leaders from academia, industry, and investment underscores the significance and impact of this collaboration. The establishment of the Center is not only a milestone in university-industry collaboration but also a model for technology exchange and innovation between Shanghai and Hong Kong.

The launch ceremony of the Industry-Research Alliance

The launch ceremony of the Capital Alliance

The ceremony also marked the launch of the Industry-Research Alliance and the Capital Alliance, jointly initiated by HKUST, CalmCar, and other leading institutions. The inaugural industry partners include Tsinghua University, Microsoft Research Asia, 51WORLD (6651.HK), MetaX Integrated Circuits (688802.SH), Arm China, and Huixi Technology. Participating investment institutions include HSBC (0005.HK), Lion X Ventures, Dragonstone Capital, GPTX Investment, Delian Capital, G70 MFO, WeMove Capital, and Great Filter Venture.

This marks the official launch of a collaborative innovation ecosystem spanning industry, academia, research, and application in the field of physical AI.

The Industry-Research Alliance will focus on technology breakthroughs and scenario deployment, while the Capital Alliance will provide funding and commercialization pathways for leading technologies.

In terms of talent development, both sides will build an industrial training system aligned with international standards, with CalmCar providing real-world engineering scenarios and hands-on opportunities, thereby nurturing a talent pipeline that spans basic research, technology development, and application deployment.

The establishment of the Physical AI Innovation Center will further promote technology exchange and resource integration between Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland in the most advanced frontier of physical AI. It aims to attract partners across the entire industrial chain and create an open, win-win ecosystem for the physical AI industry.

About The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) (https://www.hkust.edu.hk/) is a world-class university known for its innovative education, research excellence, and impactful knowledge transfer. With a holistic and interdisciplinary pedagogy approach, HKUST was ranked 6th in the QS Asia University Rankings 2026, 3rd in the Times Higher Education’s Young University Rankings 2024, and 19th globally and 1st in Hong Kong in the Times Higher Education’s Impact Rankings 2025. Eleven HKUST subjects were ranked among the world’s top 50 in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026. In addition, in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject 2026, HKUST’s Computer Science discipline which encompasses areas such as artificial intelligence and machine learning, has been ranked No. 1 in Hong Kong for ten consecutive years. Our graduates are highly competitive, consistently ranking among the world’s top 30 most sought-after employees. In terms of research and entrepreneurship, over 80% of our work was rated “internationally excellent” or “world leading” in the Research Assessment Exercise 2020 of the Hong Kong’s University Grants Committee. As of May 2026, HKUST members have founded over 1,900 active start-ups, including 11 Unicorns and 22 exits (IPO or M&A).

About CalmCar

Suzhou Calmcar Electronics Technology Co., Limited (CalmCar) was founded in 2016 and is a leading software-focused provider of L2-L2+ and L4 driving solutions in China. By 2024 installation volume, it ranks as the country’s second largest software-focused provider that offers both driving and parking solutions, and the first Chinese provider to deliver mass-production L2-L2+ solutions overseas. The company focuses on key autonomous driving technologies, offering driving, parking, and intelligent cockpit solutions with integrated driver monitoring systems (DMS), as well as L4 applications including robobuses, robotrucks, robotaxis, and robosweepers. CalmCar has partnered with over 30 vehicle manufacturers, including nine of China’s top ten automakers by sales in 2024. Its strategic investors include ZF, SAIC North America, SAIC Hengxu, BAIC Capital, China Unicom, Horizon Robotics, China TransInfo, SenseTime, Lion X Ventures, OCBC, and other leading industry players, providing solid support for innovation and global expansion.

About Lion X Ventures

Lion X Ventures is a professional venture capital institution rooted in industry and focused on cross-border investment. It targets Southeast Asia’s digital economy and high-end manufacturing sectors. Riding on the trend of Chinese enterprises expanding into Southeast Asia, we deliver capital support, industrial resources and global landing solutions for high-potential startups and growth-stage companies.

Founded in 2019, Lion Partners is the parent entity of Lion X Ventures. As a value investor dedicated to growth-oriented innovative enterprises, it is also a pioneer in joint investment across the digital economy and industrial ecosystem. We maintain a long-term focus on next-generation information technology, industrial digitalization, consumer tech and advanced manufacturing, while actively expanding our footprint in green technology and carbon neutrality.

Backed by resources from leading financial groups in Southeast Asia, we adopt a co-management fund model partnered with industry leaders. With profound industrial insights, we empower portfolio companies and build a two-way interactive industrial ecosystem connecting China and Southeast Asia, ultimately achieving win-win outcomes for capital, industries and regional development.