China's second-largest automaker by market capitalization ventures into embodied intelligence: This time, it joins hands with ByteDance

Two giants with a net worth of over 100 billion have joined hands in the field of embodied intelligence.

Seres, whose market value has now ranked second among automakers, has been quietly deploying in the field of embodied intelligence for a long time. It has just officially announced its latest move in embodied intelligence through an announcement.

However, this time its partner is not "big brother" Huawei, but another well - known technology giant, ByteDance.

It seems that this is the first time Seres has clearly announced its progress in embodied intelligence to the outside world. But digging deeper, in fact, Seres started preparing for building robots as early as two years ago.

Seres Announces Embodied Intelligence Initiative, Partnered with ByteDance's Volcengine

Seres recently released an announcement, officially stating that its subsidiary, Chongqing Phoenix Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chongqing Phoenix"), has joined hands with Beijing Volcengine Technology Co., Ltd. to sign a preliminary cooperation agreement on jointly researching and developing intelligent robot technology.

Chongqing Phoenix is a wholly - owned subsidiary of Seres, with its business scope including the research, development, manufacturing, and sales of intelligent robots, etc.

Volcengine is probably familiar to many. It is a technology company established in 2020, focusing on AI, cloud computing, and data services. Its parent company is ByteDance, with a latest valuation of over $330 billion (about 2.35 trillion yuan).

According to the announcement, the two parties plan to cooperate around "intelligent robot decision - making, control, and human - machine enhancement technology with multi - modal cloud - edge collaboration" through the model of "technology R & D + scenario verification".

To put it simply:

ByteDance will provide AI technical support: including AI algorithms, computing power, multi - modal models, etc.;

Seres will provide industrial scenarios and implementation experience: including providing real industrial needs, testing environments, and being responsible for implementing the technology into automotive and robot products.

However, the agreement signed this time is only a framework agreement, equivalent to a letter of intent, and no more details have been disclosed yet. Seres has also made it clear that the agreement will not have a significant impact on its financial performance in 2025.

As for how to cooperate specifically, what projects to carry out, and how much the involved amount is, it depends on the content of the more specific contract to be signed later.

In addition, the announcement also mentioned the reasons for Seres to officially enter the field of embodied intelligence:

Firstly, it is to respond to the national "Artificial Intelligence +" policy and promote the in - depth integration of AI and the real economy.

Secondly, from Seres' own perspective, it can pre - deploy cutting - edge technologies, prepare for the future intelligent automotive and intelligent manufacturing fields, which also conforms to the company's long - term development strategy.

In fact, Seres has been eyeing embodied intelligence for a long time and started laying the groundwork as early as two years ago.

Automakers' Embodied Intelligence Deployments Surface

Looking back at the timeline, since the end of 2023, Seres' actions to enter the field of embodied intelligence have been noticed by the outside world.

This process can be roughly divided into three lines:

The first line is to establish specialized companies and register brands to build a physical framework for the embodied intelligence business.

As early as December 2023, Seres, together with the Chongqing Municipal Finance Bureau, jointly invested to establish Chongqing Seres Phoenix Intelligent Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., specifically for undertaking robot business.

In September 2024, Seres applied for the "ROBOREX" trademark, which was recently approved and registered by the National Intellectual Property Administration. At that time, the outside world generally speculated that this was likely to be the potential brand of Seres' robot products.

Chongqing Phoenix, which signed the agreement this time, is also a new company founded by Seres on March 17th this year.

Moreover, less than half a month after its establishment, Chongqing Phoenix joined hands with Beihang University to jointly establish Beijing Saihang Embodied Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd., focusing on the R & D and sales of intelligent robots. Seres holds 70% of the shares through Chongqing Phoenix.

The second line is reflected in Seres' "recruitment drive" for the embodied intelligence business.

Since the second half of 2024, requirements related to embodied intelligence have appeared multiple times in Seres' recruitment information, covering positions such as embodied intelligence control engineers and embedded software development engineers.

For example, in this year's spring campus recruitment, Seres set up the "Embodied Intelligence Large - Model Engineer" position for the first time; in the autumn campus recruitment, there were also positions such as "Embodied Intelligence Large - Model Algorithm Engineer", which can still be seen on its recruitment official website.

The third line, which is actually complementary to the first line, is to carry out strategic cooperation with external forces.

Such as the Chongqing Municipal Finance Bureau, Beihang University mentioned above, and ByteDance in this cooperation.

Looking back, in fact, Seres has been making arrangements in the field of embodied intelligence for a long time, laying the groundwork in all aspects. This clear announcement of cooperation is more like a well - timed declaration of entry.

It's not just Seres. Nowadays, many mainstream domestic automakers are chasing the trend of embodied intelligence.

There are basically two ways to "participate": either independent R & D - products that have been unveiled include the GoSide, GoMove, and GoMate humanoid robot "family" of GAC, PX5 and Iron of XPeng, CyberOne and CyberDog of Xiaomi, etc.