The long-awaited initial public offering of Unitree Robotics, which values the Hangzhou-based firm at 60.99 billion yuan (US$9 billion), is set to serve as a valuation benchmark for China’s booming embodied-AI sector, buoyed by retail investor excitement and high-profile AI backers like DeepSeek. The firm will sell 40.45 million new shares to raise 6.1 billion yuan – above its initial 4.2 billion yuan target. Backers including AI unicorn DeepSeek and tech giant Tencent Holdings joined the strategic placement, alongside state-backed giants China National Petroleum Corp, China Southern Power Grid, China Telecom, Citic Securities and the National Council for Social Security Fund. DeepSeek, which invested 141 million yuan bound by a three-year lock-up period, agreed to co-develop AI models and embodied-intelligence technology with Unitree. The two firms would also give each other priority access in areas such as robot procurement and AI model services, Unitree said.