Nvidia Weighs $1B for Figure as Beijing Issues 'AI+' Action

Nvidia is in discussions to add roughly $1 billion to Figure at a pre-money valuation near $38 billion, deepening a position it already holds. On the same day, the CPC Central Committee and State Council issued an opinion to implement the "AI+" action, pushing computing power, algorithms and data into traditional industries. The two items frame the day's capital and policy signals.

Capital and listed-market pricing are diverging. Unitree's profit rose 674 percent, yet its shares fell 60.86 percent from an Aug. 19 peak of 1,100 yuan to 669.50 yuan, according to company disclosure. On that basis, market sentiment toward the first listed humanoid maker has shifted from revenue growth toward delivery and cash recovery, even as private valuations keep climbing.

Order volume is concentrating in components. Changying Precision reported shipments of more than 1.1 million humanoid robot precision parts in the first eight months of 2026, with embodied intelligence revenue up 537 percent. China separately operates more than 70 embodied AI training grounds, with over 40 more under construction or planned, which makes data collection capacity a gating factor for model iteration speed.

On technology, Boston Dynamics detailed a 13-DOF four-fingered Atlas hand designed for mass manufacturing and simulation-to-real reinforcement learning; Westlake Robotics released WR1.0, a whole-body locomotion and manipulation foundation model; DEEP Robotics is carrying nine years of quadruped engineering into its DR02 humanoid. The three converge on manufacturability and transferability rather than peak laboratory performance.

Demand is where the discipline now sits. Daily rental rates for humanoid robots have fallen from 10,000 yuan to below 1,000 yuan, with nearly 30 companies deploying thousands of units. Two markers are worth tracking: whether policy-linked pilots convert into procurement orders, and whether component shipment growth peaks ahead of robot-level revenue.