Alibaba launches new large model to power enterprise-facing AI agent
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. on Monday released Qwen3.8, its new flagship large language model featuring 2.4 trillion parameters, making it the largest and most powerful model in the Qwen series. On the same day, the company launched a public beta for QwenWork, an enterprise-level agent integrating three products and powered by Qwen3.8. The news drove Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares up 7% to close at HK$125.2 a share ($16) on Monday.
Embodied AI startup PokeBot raises $100 million-level Pre-A round
Chinese embodied AI firm PokeBot has completed a Pre-A funding round at the $100 million level, co-led by Shunwei Capital and Matrix Partners, with participation from investors including Eastern Bell Capital and SEE Fund. Founded in April 2026, the startup was established by Xu Huazhe, an assistant professor at Tsinghua University’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences and co-founder of Beijing-based humanoid robot company Galaxea AI.
Ant Group’s embodied AI subsidiary seeks independent funding
Robbyant, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ant Group Co. Ltd. focused on embodied AI, confirmed that it is in contact with investors regarding independent financing to accelerate the development of its robotic brain technology. The disclosure follows media reports that the company is launching its first funding round with a target of 1.5 billion yuan ($222 million) and aims to complete a second round by the end of this year. The company has developed several LingBot models and is conducting commercial testing in retail and logistics.
Hugging Face CEO says China is gaining an edge in AI race
Clément Delangue, CEO of open-source AI community Hugging Face, told CNBC on Monday that China is gaining the upper hand in the AI race by relying on open-weights models and may catch up to U.S. model developers as early as this year. He attributed China’s technological breakthroughs to its open, collaborative ecosystem, warning that U.S. developers risk falling behind by building models behind closed doors.
MiniMax open-sources video generation model H3
Chinese AI startup MiniMax Group Inc. on Monday open-sourced its new video generation model H3 that features multimodal capabilities. The model can process text, image, video and audio to generate videos up to 15 seconds at 2K resolution with native stereo audio.
Discover Robotics raises $100 million
Discover Robotics on Monday completed a $100 million Angel+ funding round less than a month after securing over $100 million in its initial angel round. The latest round included investments from IDG Capital and Summitview Capital, with all existing shareholders joining the round. The consumer-focused embodied AI startup has released Orion, a layered embodied AI foundational model, alongside hardware platforms including robotic arms and grippers.
