Chinese Robot Chip Startup D Robotics Closes 400 Million Dollar Series C for Sunrise Chips

D-Robotics, a Chinese startup that designs computing silicon for artificial intelligence robots, announced on September 17, 2026 that it closed a US$400 million Series C funding round. The company is a spinout of Hong Kong-listed Horizon Robotics, a designer of automotive driver-assistance chips, and focuses on robotics development infrastructure. The round attracted strategic investment from a leading global internet company, alongside top-tier investment institutions and continued follow-on investments from existing shareholders, according to PR Newswire. Gasgoo reported on September 17, 2026 that the $400 million is equivalent to roughly 2.68 billion yuan.

The funding arrives as embodied AI, the branch of artificial intelligence that gives robots perception, reasoning, and physical control, moves from research labs into mass production. D-Robotics provides hardware-software integrated infrastructure for AI robots, spanning high-performance computing platforms, operating systems, and application support from mature robot categories to general-purpose humanoid robots. Its platforms are powered by Sunrise chips and RDK robotics developer kits.

D-Robotics intends to use the capital to expand its Sunrise chip product portfolio across all computing levels and to develop a software platform spanning the entire robot development chain. That chain includes data collection, model training, simulation verification, and inference deployment, according to Gasgoo.

The Series C follows a busy 2026 for the company. Gasgoo reported on September 17, 2026 that D-Robotics secured $120 million, or roughly 820 million yuan, in a Series B1 round in March, followed by an additional $150 million, or about 1.02 billion yuan, in Series B2 funding in April. With the Series C close, D-Robotics has now raised nearly 4.5 billion yuan in 2026 alone.

Key Facts

PR Newswire reported on September 17, 2026 that the Series C attracted strategic investment from a leading global internet company, along with top-tier investment institutions and continued follow-on investments from existing shareholders. The official announcement did not name the strategic investor. The funding aims to enhance the Sunrise chip product portfolio across all computing levels and to develop a software platform spanning the entire robot development chain.

In the first half of 2026, D-Robotics reported that its revenue grew several times year over year. Cumulative shipments of the Sunrise series chips exceeded 8 million units. The company also said its embodied AI business entered the mass production stage and its hardware-software integrated AI infrastructure completed large-scale validation. The Sunrise S600, launched in November 2025, has been adopted by more than 20 leading embodied AI customers within six months. Those customers include TARS, Spirit AI, X Square Robot, UBTECH, PaXini Tech, Astribot, FOURIER, and Booster Robotics.

Gasgoo reported on September 17, 2026 that D-Robotics claims a customer coverage rate exceeding 50% in the embodied intelligence space. The chip family is powered by single-chip full-stack computing, high-reliability hardware, and an edge-cloud toolchain. The upgraded DGP has backed more than 500 robotics innovators across 10 frontier categories, including open-source humanoids, AI sports coaching, embodied AI models, AI imaging, and home companion robots.

The AI Insider reported on September 17, 2026 that D-Robotics raised $400 million in Series C funding to expand its robotics computing chips and software platform for AI-powered robots, including humanoids. The report noted that in April, D-Robotics said it had reached $270 million in Series B funding, including a $120 million tranche reported weeks earlier, to expand its embodied AI infrastructure platform. FinSMEs reported on September 17, 2026 that D-Robotics is a Hong Kong-based provider of robotics development infrastructure and that the Series C backers were not disclosed.

Reports on the lead investor differ. Dealroom reported on September 17, 2026 that the round was led by Future Asset, with Meituan and Hefei Guotou participating. Tech Times reported on September 19, 2026 that the round was led by South Korean financial conglomerate Mirae Asset. The official PR Newswire release says only that the round attracted strategic investment from an unnamed leading global internet company plus top-tier institutions and existing shareholders.

Analysis

What this really means is that D-Robotics is trying to become a full-stack infrastructure provider for embodied AI rather than a single-component chip vendor. The $400 million is earmarked for both hardware and software: expanding the Sunrise chip lineup across computing tiers and building a platform that spans data collection, model training, simulation verification, and inference deployment. That vertical integration could lower the barrier for robot developers who currently have to stitch together silicon, operating systems, toolchains, and deployment pipelines from different suppliers.

Tech Times reported on September 19, 2026 that D-Robotics designs the computing silicon running inside today's wave of AI-powered humanoid and industrial robots. The Sunrise chip family spans a computing range from 5 to 560 TOPS (INT8), covering lightweight home-cleaning robots to full-scale humanoids. The top-end Sunrise S600, launched in November 2025, uses a proprietary Brain-Cerebellum dual architecture: an 18-core ARM Cortex-A78AE CPU cluster for large language models, vision-language models, and vision-language-action models, plus a Nash-architecture Brain Processing Unit for high-frequency, low-latency locomotion control and perception fusion. The S600 delivers 560 TOPS of peak INT8 compute, effective with 1/2 sparsity, with total processing performance below 4,800 per the company's footnote.

The bigger picture here is that the robotics semiconductor race is intensifying against a backdrop of US China technology tensions. Tech Times noted a sharp irony: the Sunrise chips D-Robotics makes are designed to power precisely the class of robots placed on the FCC's Covered List in July 2026. The dominant Western competitor in this segment is Nvidia's Jetson AGX Thor, which delivers 2,070 FP4 TFLOPS with a 14-core Arm Neoverse-V3AE CPU and 128 GB of LPDDR5x within a 130-watt power envelope, according to Tech Times. Adopted customers for that platform include Agility Robotics and Boston Dynamics. D-Robotics is not matching Nvidia on raw floating-point throughput, but it is competing on integration, software tooling, and local market access.

The investor mix also tells a story. D-Robotics is backed by a strategic global internet company, according to PR Newswire, and Dealroom reported participation from Meituan and Hefei Guotou, with Future Asset leading. Tech Times reported that Mirae Asset led. That range of backers suggests broad appetite for embodied AI infrastructure. However, the conflicting lead investor reports also suggest that some details of the round remain opaque, which is not unusual for a strategic round involving an unnamed global internet company.

Why It Matters

The Series C matters because it is one of the largest funding events in China's robotics sector in years and it is aimed squarely at the infrastructure layer that enables robots to be built and deployed at scale. D-Robotics is not merely selling chips; it is building an integrated hardware-software stack that includes Sunrise chips, RDK robotics developer kits, operating systems, and application support. The company says its platform already powers humanoid, quadruped, home-service, companion, and logistics AMR robots, and that its embodied AI business has entered mass production.

The funding also matters for the global robotics supply chain and for geopolitics. Tech Times reported on September 19, 2026 that the Sunrise chips are designed to power the class of robots placed on the FCC's Covered List in July 2026. That means D-Robotics is expanding its chip lineup and software platform just as the United States restricts imports of Chinese robots. The company's growth could accelerate China's domestic robot industry, which may reduce reliance on Western suppliers for robot computing. At the same time, any expansion into markets that align with US restrictions could face regulatory hurdles.

For developers and startups, the D-Robotics Gravity Program and the broader platform could lower the cost and complexity of building robots. The program has supported more than 500 robotics innovators across 10 categories, including open-source humanoids, AI sports coaching, embodied AI models, AI imaging, and home companion robots. More than 500 universities and over 100,000 developers from more than 20 countries have created hundreds of types of intelligent robots on the platform, serving millions of users worldwide. That ecosystem is a strategic asset.

Next Up

D-Robotics has said the $400 million will fund expansion of its Sunrise chip product portfolio across all computing levels and development of a software platform spanning data collection, model training, simulation verification, and inference deployment. The company is also expected to continue growing the DGP, which already supports more than 500 robotics innovators, 500 universities, and over 100,000 developers in more than 20 countries.

The unresolved question of the lead investor may also be clarified in future filings or announcements. Dealroom reported that Future Asset led the round with Meituan and Hefei Guotou participating, while Tech Times reported that Mirae Asset led. The official PR Newswire release says only that the round attracted strategic investment from an unnamed leading global internet company plus top-tier institutions and existing shareholders.