Alibaba Group Holding has introduced its first suite of artificial intelligence models designed specifically for robotic applications, signaling a significant expansion of its AI capabilities from software to the physical realm. The Hangzhou-based company unveiled the Qwen Robot Suite on June 16, marking its entry into “embodied AI,” which equips machines with the ability to perceive, reason, and interact within physical environments.

The new suite was developed by Alibaba’s AI research division, Tongyi Lab, and has already begun pilot testing with selected enterprise clients of Alibaba Cloud. The Qwen Robot Suite is structured around three interconnected components: Qwen-RobotNav, which combines vision and language to enable robots to navigate physical spaces; Qwen-RobotWorld, a video-based “world model” that allows robots to simulate and anticipate changes in their environment before taking action; and Qwen-RobotManip, a generalist vision-language-action model responsible for executing physical tasks.

Qwen-RobotManip, trained on more than 38,000 hours of open-source data, demonstrated strong performance in the recent RoboChallenge real-robot benchmark, achieving a process score of 59.83 and completing 45% of tasks successfully, according to Alibaba.

The launch marks a strategic shift for Alibaba’s Qwen AI brand, which until now has been primarily associated with large language and multimodal models designed to compete with global firms such as OpenAI and Google, as well as Chinese competitors including DeepSeek and ByteDance.

The development comes amid a broader industry push toward embodied intelligence, which is increasingly regarded as a crucial next step in AI evolution. Major US technology companies, including Google DeepMind and Nvidia, are investing heavily in robotics-focused AI platforms, while well-funded startups like Physical Intelligence, Skild AI, and Figure AI are racing to develop versatile robotic control systems.

In China, the robotics industry benefits from robust hardware manufacturing capabilities stemming from an extensive supply chain and cost-effective production. Chinese technology firms are now intensifying efforts to build sophisticated software intelligence for autonomous decision-making. Alongside Alibaba’s Qwen models, notable players in the sector include Tencent’s HY-Embodied and robotics firms such as Unitree, AgiBot, UBTech, Galbot, Spirit AI, and GigaAI. Additionally, electric vehicle manufacturers like Xpeng and Xiaomi are leveraging autonomous driving and manufacturing expertise to create physical AI applications.

The Chinese robotics market is also poised for growth through public offerings. Unitree, a prominent robotics company, has passed a key regulatory review for listing on the Shanghai Star Market, potentially stimulating investor interest in the sector’s second half. According to Morgan Stanley analyst Zhong Sheng, proceeds from these IPOs will primarily fund research and development focused on robot models, with a smaller portion allocated to expanding production capacity.