YIMU Technology is named to the 2026 AI Cloud 100 China List as a representative of Physical AI.

ME AI news, on October 16, the 2026 AI Cloud 100 China summit, co-hosted by Jingya Capital and Shibei High-Tech Park, was held in Shanghai. During the event, the 2026 AI Cloud 100 China list was unveiled, and YIMU Technology was selected as a representative company in the Physical AI category.

This year marks the fifth edition of this ranking, with the theme “AI’s Next Frontier.” As the competition among large models extends from language to the physical world, embodied intelligence has become the central focus. Over the past two years, the emphasis in embodied intelligence has been continuously evolving from “understanding” to “doing.”
Industry perspectives hold that the current biggest bottleneck for embodied intelligence lies in data, with the primary challenge being data collection, and the entry point for collection being perception. If touch cannot be digitized, physical AI will lack a critical data source, becoming a major bottleneck for robots to truly interact with the physical world. As a result, touch is regarded as a key infrastructure enabling embodied intelligence to evolve from “seeing and hearing” to “interacting, learning, and iterating.”

Yimu Technology entered the field from precisely this point. Founded in 2016, the company was established by Dr. Li Zhiqiang, a Carnegie Mellon University graduate with over 20 years of experience in developing big data models, microfluidic biosensors, and spectral chips. Yimu Technology has自主研发 a biomimetic visuotactile sensor that enables robots to “see” every microscopic deformation at the point of fingertip contact, then real-time calculate pressure, shear force, texture, and sliding trends. In an industry where “robots can reason but cannot act” remains common, touch is widely recognized as the most challenging and unavoidable component for every robotics company. Yimu Technology has reduced the sensor thickness to under 3 millimeters, becoming the world’s thinnest mass-producible biomimetic visuotactile sensor, solving the bottleneck of “too bulky to fit” in dexterous hands; it achieves a force resolution of 0.005 newtons and an industrial lifespan exceeding five million presses, with ninety percent of its tactile core metrics reaching human-like levels.
In the haptic technology space, most players are still stuck in the sample distribution and small-batch testing phase; the real dividing line is the ability to consistently produce at scale. Yimu Technology has achieved mass production and is already delivering its sensors in bulk to robotics, data acquisition, automotive, pharmaceutical, and food industries—while competitors are still validating samples, Yimu’s sensors have already rolled off the production line and are being deployed in real-world manufacturing lines.

Dr. Li Zhiqiang, founder and CEO of Yimu Technology, stated in a previous public media interview: "Only by completing the sense of touch can machines truly move from 'understanding the world' to 'being able to do real work.' In other words, tactile perception has become the 'final millimeter' for the practical implementation of physical AI."
What Yimu Technology aims to do goes far beyond just a single sensor. Around haptics, it builds a three-layer architecture: downward, it integrates mainstream data acquisition technologies to record force and success/failure feedback during real-world operations, cultivating high-quality haptic datasets; in the middle, it uses proprietary algorithm modules to unify raw signals from different hardware into a common encoding, enabling upper-layer strategy models to interpret them directly; upward, it fuses haptics with vision and language into multimodal large models, filling the long-missing link.
The three layers converge on the same point: Yimu Technology is building physical AI infrastructure. Sensors are the entry point; data and models are the foundation. Capital is revaluing it based on this positioning.
According to reports, in July of this year, Yimu Technology completed an E-round financing of over RMB 1 billion, with a post-money valuation exceeding RMB 10 billion, joining the club of embodied intelligence unicorns. This round was co-led by top-tier RMB funds, leading USD funds, and prominent industry players, with funds primarily directed toward the research and development of haptic sensing materials, chips, haptic-enhanced world models, and the expansion of mass production lines.
From “understanding” to “doing,” touch is the first gateway for physical AI to obtain real-world feedback. OneLook Technology aims to be that very gateway.
(Source: Ifnar)