NUPIAO Reporter |
NUPIAO Editor | Shuqi Wen
On June 17, NUPIAO got the exclusive scoop: Qiyuan Robotics, backed by Shangwei New Materials, is gearing up to open its first physical storefront in Shanghai. If you’re looking to get your hands dirty with consumer-grade humanoid bots, this will be the place to go.
Today, NUPIAO also caught wind that a second location is popping up in Shenzhen, marking the brand’s very first Asian retail space. Right now, it’s under construction—you’ve probably already seen the temporary fencing going up outside.
When we reached out to Shangwei New Materials for comment, their spokesperson kept things grounded: “Our consumer embodiment-AI robotics division is ticking along exactly as planned.” They’re laser-focused on R&D, product tweaks, and real-world testing. The upcoming store displays are just standard operational steps. For the full breakdown, always defer to their official filings.
Honestly, if you’ve been tracking the space, this push toward embodied intelligence wasn’t exactly a curveball.
Back in May, Shangwei tweaked its business registration to explicitly include AI hardware sales and smart home manufacturing. Why should you care? It plugs a major compliance gap, giving them the legal green light to handle everything from prototype dev to full-scale retail without breaking any rules.
Let’s look at the budget. During Q1 2026, Shangwei dumped over 37 million RMB straight into embodied AI projects. Most of that capital is flowing into refining the robot’s chassis, hacking core control algorithms, and building out smarter human-machine interaction layers.
According to internal details shared with NUPIAO, after licensing patents from Zhiyuan Robotics, Shangwei built out its own “SW Qiyuan” ecosystem to drive development and fine-tune their flagship unit, the Qiyuan Q1, for everyday use cases.
Speaking to NUPIAO about their current setup, Shangwei’s team noted that their traditional new-materials division is still the reliable cash cow, quietly bankrolling the experimental robotics side until it hits critical mass.
Flip back to December 31st last year, and that’s when the Qiyuan Q1—the world’s first ultra-compact, full-body force-controlled humanoid bot—stepped into the spotlight.
Company chairman Peng Zhihui (better known in the tech scene as Zhihui Jun) made waves by officially announcing their dive into the personal robotics arena under the “SW Qiyuan” banner, finally putting a concrete name to the strategy.
What makes the Q1 worth your time? Thanks to major breakthroughs in joint mechanics, overall dimensions, and target markets, it successfully shoves lab-grade humanoid capabilities into something you can actually toss in a backpack.
Let’s talk specs. They’ve squeezed the whole frame down to just one-eighth the size of a standard adult-sized bot, shaving off dead weight while making it way tougher against drops. The real magic? Tiny QDD quasi-direct-drive joints smaller than an egg. Despite the miniaturization, it doesn’t skimp on force feedback or high-speed responsiveness, making it one of the rare compact units that actually handles full-body torque control.
So, who’s this built for? Primarily researchers, hardware tinkerers, and early-adopter families looking to bring a genuinely smart companion home.
