Asia’s AI Startups Enter the Physical World with Robotics
Poulami Saha
AI Enters the Physical World: Asian startups are moving AI beyond screens, developing machines that can perceive environments, reason, navigate and perform physical tasks autonomously.
China Leads Robotics Investment: Chinese robotics startups raised $5.6 billion across 176 deals through mid-May 2026, showing accelerating investor interest in embodied AI.
Embodied AI Changes Robotics: Startups increasingly use vision-language-action models that enable robots to observe surroundings, reason about tasks and execute actions independently.
Humanoid Robots Gain Momentum: Chinese companies are shifting attention from impressive robotic movements toward software capable of making machines useful for economically productive tasks.
Robot Brains Become Crucial: Robotics developers increasingly identify intelligence as the critical bottleneck, with high-quality real-world data remaining essential for training capable robot systems.
Singapore Builds Real-World Testbeds: Singapore is establishing a multi-robot testbed at Punggol Digital District to test and refine physical AI systems in urban environments.
India’s Physical AI Funding Grows: Indian physical-AI startups raised $42 million during the first quarter of 2026, reflecting increasing investor interest in robotics.
Specialised Robots Find Applications: Singapore startup Hivebotics raised $6 million to scale autonomous restroom-cleaning robots and develop its physical-AI intelligence layer.
Commercialisation Remains the Challenge: Robotics startups must move beyond demonstrations by proving reliable performance, gathering real-world data and deploying autonomous systems at meaningful commercial scale