- Former Li Auto smart driving head Lang Xianpeng has founded an embodied AI company, teaming up with an Alibaba veteran.
- This move comes as investors aggressively chase robotics startups, despite the industry still facing technological uncertainties.
Lang Xianpeng, the former head of smart driving at Li Auto, has reportedly launched a new startup focused on embodied AI.
Lang has chosen a senior executive from Alibaba as his partner to enter this red-hot industry, according to a report by local media Red Probe on Monday.
The move comes as investors aggressively pour capital into the sector known as embodied AI, a technology aims to integrate AI into physical entities, such as robots, to endow them with the ability to perceive, learn, and dynamically interact with their environments.
Lang's departure marks the latest brain drain of top talent from China's electric vehicle industry, as they seek to realize their value in the booming robotics field.
For Lang, the entrepreneurial route offers potential financial returns far exceeding what he could earn as a senior employee at an EV maker, the Red Probe report noted.
Simplexity Robotics, founded by Jia Peng — who also hails from Li Auto's smart driving team — has already reached a valuation of around $1 billion, highlighting the massive wealth effect, the report said.
The current capital market environment is highly favorable for founders like Lang, who have managed teams of hundreds and delivered cutting-edge technologies.
Entering 2026, a single funding round for China's top embodied AI startups typically reaches over 1 billion yuan ($145 million), with fierce competition for allocations.
The model capabilities currently demonstrated by leading companies are often viewed as "handcrafted" small models, capable of performing only simple tasks such as folding clothes.
While these demonstrations can excite the capital markets, they are still a very long way from functioning effectively in actual commercial scenarios, the report noted.
The industry consensus is that once data production methods are established, startups with a strong technological vision will quickly stand out.
This means that for new entrants, the entrepreneurial time window is rapidly closing, and capital will shift from its current broad-based investment in numerous projects to a strategy of selecting winners.
Lang joined Li Auto in January 2018 as employee number one in its autonomous driving department. Over eight years, he was promoted from R&D director to senior vice president, leading key initiatives within the smart driving division.
Prior to that, Lang held positions at Baidu such as senior project manager, participating in the development of projects like Baidu Maps and autonomous driving.
Lang facilitated two crucial decisions in the process of Li Auto's in-house development of smart driving capabilities: the shift to end-to-end technology in 2024, and the transition to VLA (Vision-Language-Action Model) in 2025.
Lang was reassigned as the head of the newly established humanoid robot department in February, and subsequently ended his tenure at the automaker.
($1 = 6.9132 yuan)
