JD nutzt "Roboter" im Lieferdienst-Konflikt.

On July 22nd Beijing time, on the previous day, July 21st, Zhongqing Robot, Qianxun Intelligence, and Zhujie Power announced on the same day that they had received a new round of financing led by JD.com. On the 22nd, JD.com's self - operated takeaway kitchen "Qixian Xiaochu", which uses cooking robots, opened in Beijing.

Let's first talk about the three robot companies led by JD.com:

Among them, Qianxun Intelligence, which is considered to focus on AI brains, received a 600 million yuan Pre - A+ round of financing led by JD.com. Zhongqing Robot, which is thought to strengthen the robot body, got a 1 billion yuan Series A1 round led by JD.com. Zhujie Power, which is responsible for scenario implementation, did not disclose the specific financing amount, but it is reported to be in the hundreds of millions.

Although JD.com hasn't officially announced how much it invested, according to common practice, JD.com's investment in the robot field in one day is probably around 1 billion yuan, and it may even exceed 1 billion. This is the strength a leading investor should have.

Three companies in the field of robotics (embodied intelligence) announcing on the same day that they received investment led by JD.com is obviously a move for PR purposes. It means that JD.com, which was considered to have lost five years according to Liu Qiangdong, after starting the takeaway war in February, is now making a large - scale foray into the robot field in July, seeking to make a comeback in some way.

Coincidentally, JD.com, which is engaged in a takeaway war with Meituan and Alibaba, also encounters these two old rivals in the robot field. The so - called "red, yellow, and blue" takeaway war has also extended to the robot field.

Now let's talk about the newly opened "Qixian Xiaochu":

JD.com's self - operated takeaway store "Qixian Xiaochu" officially opened in Beijing. The prices of the dishes range from 10 to 30 yuan. It adopts the "takeaway + self - pick - up" sales model with an open kitchen and no dine - in service. It has also officially launched the "Dish Partner" recruitment plan, offering 1 billion yuan in cash to find partners for 1,000 signature dishes. Moreover, it plans to invest over 10 billion yuan in the next three years to build 10,000 self - operated takeaway stores named "Qixian Xiaochu" across the country.

In the kitchen of "Qixian Xiaochu", besides chefs, there are also some cooking robots. One of them is the Meishan Lion brand cooking robot from Xianglu Technology. As early as July 2024, JD.com made a strategic investment of 200 million yuan in Xianglu Technology. At that time, Xianglu Technology positioned itself as a developer of life - service robots, and its main products included hotel self - service terminals, delivery service robots, etc.

From this perspective, JD.com's layout in the takeaway and robot fields didn't start this year but much earlier. It's imaginable that in the future, the products of Zhongqing Robot, Qianxun Intelligence, and Zhujie Power will also be applied to JD.com's business scenarios, including JD.com's e - commerce, logistics warehousing, and express delivery fields.

Is "Qixian Xiaochu" the innovative business that Liu Qiangdong mentioned to be launched annually? At a small - scale sharing meeting in June, Liu Qiangdong said that the past five years were a lost period for JD.com because no innovative business was launched. He also said that an innovative business will be launched every year from now on.

It is reported that "Qixian Xiaochu" belongs to the Beijing Dongcheng Branch of Xianshi Jisuda E - commerce Co., Ltd., which was established on June 27, 2025. Only 10 days had passed since Liu Qiangdong's statement about launching an innovative business every year. "Qixian Xiaochu" is a self - operated takeaway kitchen where JD.com buys raw materials, cooks, sells, and delivers by itself. Another project, "Qixian Food Mall", is an investment - attracting food city with a model of third - party merchants' settlement, and JD.com mainly provides delivery services.

JD.com's launch of the self - operated takeaway kitchen model of "Qixian Xiaochu" and the "Dish Partner" recruitment plan may be because JD.com found that instead of spending a lot of effort to rectify the non - dine - in takeaway specialty stores criticized by takeaway buyers, it's better to do it by itself, so that the quality can be more controllable. Although the model is more complex, JD.com has never been afraid of complex models.

When JD.com officially entered the takeaway market in February this year, it aimed to recruit "quality dine - in catering merchants" and excluded takeaway specialty stores. However, in actual operation, it was found that some takeaway specialty stores also appeared on JD.com's takeaway platform.

Returning to the aforementioned robot war, some investors said that the current embodied intelligence track is a battle between Liu Qiangdong and Wang Xing because these two companies are intensively investing in this track.

According to public information, Meituan has invested in at least five embodied intelligence companies, including Yushu Technology, Yinhe General, Tashizhihang, Xinghaitu, and Independent Variable Robot, etc., in which it has led investments. Previously, Meituan also invested in Gaoxian Robot for cleaning robots, Pudu Robot for indoor delivery robots, and Constellation Medtech for laparoscopic surgical robots. JD.com has invested in Xianglu Technology, Zhiyuan Robot, Qianxun Intelligence, Zhongqing Robot, and Zhujie Power, etc.

Actually, why is it said to be "from the takeaway war to the robot war"? Because Ant Group of the Alibaba system has also invested in four humanoid robot companies, including Yushu Technology, Xinghaitu, Xingchen Intelligence, and Taihu Robot, as well as Lingxinqiaoshou, a company for dexterous hand components. Ant has also established a company for the R & D of embodied intelligent robots, Ant Lingbo Technology.

It seems that the robot track is more of a FOMO track for the giants than the large - model track. FOMO: fear of missing out, which means blindly following investments for fear of missing opportunities. In addition to the above takeaway players, JD.com, Meituan, and Alibaba, investing in the robot track, Tencent, Baidu, and ByteDance are also eager to catch up, which won't be elaborated here one by one.

However, it can't be said that the giants are in a FOMO state because these giants have extremely rich robot application scenarios. Once robots are commercially applied, these giants will be the first to try them out. Besides "Qixian Xiaochu" of JD.com using Xianglu's cooking robots, Meituan Pharmacy and Yinhe General jointly developed a solution for a humanoid robot - enabled smart pharmacy, etc.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Chezhi" (ID: invehc), author: Michael Yuan, published by 36Kr with authorization.