As if the takeout business weren’t enough to fuel tensions between JD.com and Meituan, their rivalry has now extended into embodied artificial intelligence, with both companies investing in robotics startups to gain an edge.
Following earlier reports by 36Kr on Meituan’s investments in X Square Robot and Galaxea AI, two emerging players in the embodied intelligence space, JD has countered with a flurry of moves. After backing Agibot in its Series B funding round, it has made new bets on two more companies: Spirit AI and Engine AI.
Spirit AI recently closed a pre-Series A+ round, raising nearly RMB 600 million (USD 84 million), led by JD. Other investors include the China Internet Investment Fund, Zhejiang Provincial Financial Holdings, Huatai Zijin Investment, and Fosun RZ Capital.
Meanwhile, Engine AI has secured close to RMB 1 billion (USD 140 million) across two rounds. JD led its Series A1 round, which also drew participation from CATL-affiliated Puquan Capital, Yintai Group, Fortune Capital, Tsinghua Holdings Capital, and Huangpu River Capital. Rockets Capital, founded by Xpeng, led the earlier pre-Series A++ round.
While Spirit AI and Engine AI both operate in the same field, their focus areas and capabilities differ.
Spirit AI was co-founded by Han Fengtao, former CTO of Rokae, and Gao Yang, an assistant professor and doctoral advisor at Tsinghua University’s Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences. The company focuses primarily on embodied foundation models, though it is also developing physical robot hardware. Its proprietary vision-language-action (VLA) model, “Spirit v1,” was recently upgraded to enable robots to perform a range of office tasks, from tidying desks and repositioning chairs to taking out the trash.
Engine AI, by contrast, is more grounded in hardware development. It integrates traditional motion control with reinforcement learning to build full-stack embodied systems, including components for motion, force, planning, vision-language navigation, and localization. The company has already developed a product lineup that spans bipedal and full humanoid robots.
JD and Meituan are now charting distinct paths in the sector.
JD has invested in Agibot, Engine AI, Spirit AI, and Xianglu Technology. Meituan, meanwhile, is pursuing a dual-track approach to embodied intelligence, backing companies focused on robot “brains” such as X Square Robot and Galaxea AI, as well as body-focused manufacturers like Unitree Robotics and Galbot. More recently, Meituan also joined the investor lineup for Tars, another startup gaining traction in the space.
JD’s interest in embodied AI aligns closely with its e-commerce and logistics operations, but its ambitions extend beyond external investments.
In March, JD established a dedicated embodied AI unit, bringing on Shen Hui, a former vice president at SenseTime, to lead the effort. The company has also mobilized internal teams to pursue advanced R&D in this area.
In July, JD launched the JoyInside platform for robotics, aimed at consolidating its years of work in intelligent interaction, particularly in customer service, digital avatars, and shopping assistance.
According to JD, the JoyInside platform features emotionally intelligent dialogue, consistent speech-action behavior, and flexibility across different robot types and use cases. The company plans to co-develop “brains” with human-like conversational abilities in partnership with hardware manufacturers, aiming to improve human-machine interaction.
JoyInside has already been integrated into several robots, including the MagicDog Pro quadruped robot, the NIA-FO1 humanoid robot, the egg-shaped Xuanji robot, the Yuanluobo chess-playing robot, and Engine AI’s PM01.
KrASIA Connection features translated and adapted content that was originally published by 36Kr. This article was written by Qiu Xiaofen for 36Kr.