DeepSeek reopens $8 billion funding round: takes stake in Unitree

DeepSeek has reopened a funding round that aims to bring in nearly $8 billion at an estimated $74 billion valuation. The move comes just days after the Chinese AI company warned that its model prices are about to jump sharply. At the same time, DeepSeek picked up a 2.31% stake in humanoid robot maker Unitree, paying 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) through Unitree’s Shanghai IPO placement.

That puts DeepSeek on a bigger path than cheap language models alone. It’s stepping into robotics, and Unitree just arrived with momentum: a Shanghai STAR Market IPO that valued the company at close to $9 billion, raised about $904 million, and made it mainland China’s first publicly listed humanoid robot company.

The two companies said they’ll work together on humanoid robot models, mixing DeepSeek’s LLMs with Unitree’s robotics and motion-control systems. The goal is straightforward enough: help robots understand instructions better, react in real time, and take on more complicated tasks. Under the deal, Unitree also gets priority access to DeepSeek’s training services, while DeepSeek gets priority access to Unitree hardware.

A big chunk of the new money is expected to go toward data centers and computing capacity in Inner Mongolia. That comes only days after DeepSeek signaled a steep increase in model pricing, which analysts took as a clear attempt to start turning scale into revenue.

If you keep an eye on AI and robotics in China, this one matters.

There’s nothing for anyone to download yet. Still, if this partnership actually clicks, DeepSeek gets a live proving ground for its models, and Unitree gets a prominent partner just as the race starts shifting past chatbots and cloud software into embodied intelligence.

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