Illustration: AI-generated · Inside China AI
Six Companies Europe Hasn’t Met
Analysis · Inside China AI · 17 October 2026 Thirty-eight speakers at Web Summit list China as their country — as many as Germany. We counted them at the start of the month. The companies arriving in Lisbon are not the ones European readers usually hear about. So here are six of them. What they build, the number that matters, and — the part most profiles skip — what is not known about them. One thing to say at the start, because it changes how the list reads: they are not coming to Europe to introduce themselves. Several are already here.ModelBest · on-device models
What it is: A Beijing company spun out of Tsinghua University, developing the MiniCPM family through OpenBMB, a joint Tsinghua–ModelBest effort. Its models run from roughly one to nine billion parameters and are built to work on a phone rather than in a data centre. The number: MiniCPM models are being installed on Samsung flagship smartphones (KrASIA). If that ships as described, a Chinese on-device model reaches European consumers inside a Korean handset, with no procurement decision taken anywhere in Europe. What isn’t known: the valuation. Reports this year range from just over one billion dollars to more than three billion, a threefold spread we could not resolve. The company’s own figures — 38 million model downloads, an on-device agent in 300,000 vehicles by year end — are unaudited claims.Manus AI · agents, and a blocked acquisition
What it is: An autonomous-agent company founded in Beijing in 2022 as Butterfly Effect, whose core operations moved to Singapore in 2025. Whether it still counts as Chinese is a live question, and Web Summit lists it under China. The number: Meta agreed to buy it for more than two billion dollars in December 2025, and Chinese regulators blocked the deal (TechCrunch). On 8 October it announced more than $500 million in fresh funding led by Boyu Capital and IDG, with Tencent, HSG and ZhenFund participating. What isn’t known: the valuation. Earlier reporting put the target near four billion dollars; the company did not disclose it, and several outlets state the figure as settled when it is not. Interpretation: a government that prevents an American acquisition of an agent company is making a statement about which capabilities it considers strategic. That is the most European-relevant fact on this page, and it has nothing to do with the product.AgiBot · humanoids, and a factory in Serbia
What it is: Shanghai-based humanoid maker, also known as Zhiyuan Robotics. Investors reported include Tencent, BYD, HongShan, Hillhouse, LG Electronics, JD.com and SAIC. The number: IDC puts AgiBot above 8,600 humanoids shipped in the first half of 2026, roughly 35 per cent of a global market approaching 25,000 units. Counterpoint counts differently and arrives at 43.1 per cent — a gap that comes from whether wheeled and half-size platforms count as humanoids. Peers have raised the question; we flag it rather than pick a side. The European fact nobody reported: with the Minth Group, AgiBot has opened what is described as Europe’s first mass-production base for humanoid robots, in Šabac, Serbia — a €20 million initial line, with a €200 million robotics hub planned at Inđija. Europe’s humanoid debate is conducted as though production is a future question. It is being answered, 80 kilometres from Belgrade. What isn’t known: the funding history. Published figures range from $83.8 million total to a single round of roughly seven billion renminbi. A Hong Kong listing process began on 24 July 2026 with a reported target in the HK$40–50 billion range; the prospectus is not public.Galbot · robots that mind the shop
What it is: Beijing embodied-AI company. Its wheeled, dual-armed G1 runs unattended 50-square-metre retail stores — stocking, retrieving, packing — across dozens of Chinese cities, and a robot-assisted pharmacy in Beijing. The number: RMB 2.5 billion raised in March 2026, about $350 million, at a valuation above three billion dollars (TechNode). It was reportedly the national AI industry fund’s first investment in an embodied-intelligence company. The European connection: CATL is both an investor and a customer — Galbot’s industrial S1 works on CATL battery lines. Among its named industrial clients are Bosch and Toyota. Interpretation: CATL is building battery plants in Germany and Hungary. We have seen no announcement that Galbot machines will run in them, and we are not reporting that they will — but the supplier relationship exists and the plants are being built, and that is a question worth putting to both companies. What isn’t known: whether the store robots make money. Order volumes are reported by the company; unit economics are not.Rokid · glasses already on sale here
What it is: Hangzhou AI-glasses maker, founded 2014. It showed its glasses at IFA in Berlin in 2025 and, according to Nikkei Asia, launched in Japan and Europe during 2026. The number: Omdia is cited as ranking Rokid first worldwide in 2025 for AI glasses with display functionality. We found that figure only through secondary sources and could not see the underlying report, so treat it as reported rather than established. What isn’t known: how many it has actually sold in Europe. A Hong Kong listing is reported to be in preparation, which would make the numbers public.Zhipu AI · the one you may have heard of
What it is: Developer of the GLM model family, and the one company on this list with a European profile — mostly because of what others say about it. The number: Anthropic raised concerns about elite-level offensive-security capability in GLM-5.3, a model whose weights are published. We reported it in our 4 October briefing and noted then, as now, that Anthropic is a direct competitor to Z.ai. What isn’t known: whether that finding has been independently reproduced. It is testable, and so far we have not seen a third party test it. We have asked Zhipu for a response and will publish it.Why it matters for Europe
The pattern across the six is not product, it is capital. AgiBot, Galbot and Rokid are all reported to be preparing Hong Kong listings; Manus raised half a billion dollars three days ago and is weighing a Hong Kong restructuring; ModelBest raised heavily this year. This is a pre-IPO cohort, and a pre-IPO cohort needs international visibility. That is a large part of why they are on a European stage in November, and it should shape how their announcements are read. The second pattern is that European entry is already under way, quietly and through side doors. A model inside a Samsung handset. A humanoid factory in Serbia. Glasses on sale since this year. A robot supplier to Bosch. None of these required a European procurement decision, a tariff ruling or a press conference — which is precisely why none of them generated European news. What a European buyer should take from this: the question is no longer whether to work with Chinese AI companies. For anyone running Samsung hardware, buying from Bosch’s suppliers or evaluating open weights, the answer may already be yes. The useful question is narrower and more awkward: do you know which parts of your stack this applies to?Two we left out
We intended eight profiles. Even Realities and Xynova are not here because we could not verify enough about either to write a profile we would stand behind — funding figures appeared only in uncited buyer’s guides, and we found no European sales data. We would rather publish six we can defend.What would change our assessment
- The Hong Kong prospectuses. Four of these six are reported to be heading for listings. A prospectus replaces company claims with audited figures, and several of the numbers above will move when it appears.
- Confirmation of the Samsung and Serbia deployments at scale, rather than as announcements.
- An independent reproduction of Anthropic’s GLM-5.3 finding, in either direction.
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