Ant Group’s open-source push aims to move robots from lab demos to real-world work

South China Morning PostCenter-RightEN 1 min read 100% complete by Vincent ChowJanuary 30, 2026 at 02:00 PM

AI Summary

short article 1 min

Ant Group, Alibaba's fintech affiliate, is open-sourcing its first AI models for robotics, specifically a vision-language-action model called LingBot-VLA. This move by Ant Lingbo Technology (Robbyant) aims to advance embodied intelligence and create a "universal brain" for robots, enabling them to handle complex, real-world tasks. The goal is to move beyond preprogrammed routines and facilitate the scalable deployment of robots across various industries. Robbyant's CEO emphasized the need for cost-effective foundation models to reliably integrate AI into the physical world. This push addresses a critical obstacle in the robotics industry: turning robots into economically productive machines by improving their autonomy and ability to generalize across tasks.

Key Entities & Roles

Key Player Opposition Context

Hangzhou 40% Unitree Robotics 50% Zhu Xing 60% Alibaba Group Holding 70% China 80% Ant Lingbo Technology (Robbyant) ×280% Ant Group ×290%

Keywords

robotics 100% artificial intelligence 90% embodied intelligence 80% real-world tasks 70% open-source 70% machine intelligence 60% ant group 60% robot deployment 50% vision-language-action model 50% robbyant 40%