Beijing has launched a 100 billion yuan ($13.7 billion) fund to invest in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, and “other industries of the future”, making it the latest mega-sized industry fund set up by a regional government after DeepSeek’s AI breakthrough.
Authorities in Beijing unveiled the fund on Friday as part of their efforts to further the development of AI and robotics—particularly embodied intelligence—in the capital city.
Embodied intelligence, or embodied AI, integrates AI into physical entities like robots, allowing them to perceive, learn, and interact dynamically with the environment and humans.
With a fund life of 15 years, the mega-sized government industry fund will focus on supporting embodied intelligence innovations, as well as related industrial applications and mass market adoption. Specifically, the fund plans to invest in three areas:
- AI and robotics R&D companies, which are involved in the integration of large language models (LLMs) with embodied intelligence, multimodal sensing, robotic navigation and control, or other key technologies that “can help bring embodied intelligence to the market”;
- developers of AI chips and core embodied intelligence components, such as made-in-China, high-performance robot control chips or brain-inspired vision chips;
- and the applications of embodied intelligence across all walks of life, like scientific research and education, industrial production, business services, and elderly care.
Beijing is currently home to approximately 2,400 AI companies, accounting for about 40% of AI companies nationwide, including 36 AI unicorns, which are privately-held AI firms with a valuation of over $1 billion. In 2024, the city’s core AI industry scale crossed 300 billion yuan ($41.2 billion), according to Liu Weihua, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission and the Administrative Commission of Zhongguancun Science Park.
Alongside the fund, Beijing authorities released an “Action Plan” for the three years from 2025-2027 to detail the municipal government’s targets for developing embodied intelligence locally.
These targets include supporting no less than 100 companies in embodied AI innovations, nurturing at least 50 key industry players, and building two or more dedicated industry clusters for embodied intelligence, to name a few.
The development makes Beijing the latest city in China to set up a dedicated government fund for AI and robotics. Earlier in February, Shenzhen announced a 10-billion-yuan ($1.4 billion) AI and robotics fund, with a focus on AI software, hardware, and embodied intelligence.
Shanghai also introduced two government-backed funds for investments in large language models (LLMs) and embodied intelligence, respectively, in late 2024. The two funds started with an initial investment of 1 billion yuan ($137.3 million) each.
