Xiaomi is aggressively recruiting top talent in robotics technology, and a former engineer from Tesla's Optimus project has also joined.

This year, the Xiaomi Robotics Team has been recruiting top - notch talents from all walks of life like a stamp collector.

Sure enough, Lu Zeyu, a former member of Tesla's Optimus dexterous hand team, recently announced on social media that he has joined the Xiaomi Robotics Team and taken on the important position of Head of the Dexterous Hand.

During his more than two - year tenure at Tesla, he was deeply involved in the R & D of the Optimus robot's hand, including the development of tactile sensors, dexterous grasping and manipulation, and the design of the hand structure and other key technologies - his work experience is a perfect match.

Lu Zeyu said that after joining Xiaomi, he hopes to "accelerate the convergence of dexterous hand technology paths and their engineering implementation" and has publicly recruited R & D personnel who "share the same vision" to join the team.

He also welcomes everyone to discuss cutting - edge technologies related to robots. Friends who are interested can leave messages and interact with him through the "portal" at the end of this article.

According to LinkedIn information, Lu Zeyu has actually been at Xiaomi for more than two months, but the relevant information has just been made public.

Lu Zeyu Joins Xiaomi Robotics

Lu Zeyu graduated with a doctorate from the National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2023, majoring in electromechanics, robotics, and automation engineering. Here, he delved into key technical knowledge and engineering practice capabilities in robot dexterous manipulation, embedded systems, and tactile sensing.

Source: Lu Zeyu's personal account on Xiaohongshu, @Zach Lu Zeyu

Before pursuing his doctorate, he also went to several prestigious universities for scientific research internships, accumulating practical experience in robot kinematics and intelligent systems.

In 2016, he participated in a summer camp at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Canada. The following year, he went to the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University as a scientific research intern. In 2018, he entered the Robot and Protein Kinematics Lab in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University (JHU) to continue his scientific research internship.

Since 2023, Lu Zeyu joined Tesla, starting as an intern in the Robotics Engineer position and eventually becoming a full - time engineer. He participated in the core R & D process of the Optimus robot's dexterous hand.

Initially, he was responsible for the concept evaluation, prototype verification, and testing of tactile sensors in Tesla's Bot/Optimus team. He was involved in the design of analog/digital circuits, the schematic and board - level layout of PCBA, and the entire data collection and analysis work.

Subsequently, he became an intern robotics R & D engineer, and his work focus expanded from sensing hardware to the robot's hand itself: he was responsible for the early development and integration of the "tactile skin" of the human - like hand, participated in robot grasping and manipulation tasks in factory scenarios, and was involved in key modules such as hand structure design.

In 2024, he officially became a full - time robotics R & D engineer at Tesla and continued to be deeply involved in the core R & D of the Optimus Hand, including dexterous grasping, the design of complex manipulation actions, and the tactile perception system. He truly entered the main stage of the "from design to engineering implementation" of the robot's dexterous hand.

He accumulated complete experience at Tesla, from hardware to underlying perception, and then to structure and control, spanning multiple underlying hardware directions such as "analog and digital signal processing, radar perception, and power supply systems". This is the core underlying ability to build the "perception system" of the robot's dexterous hand.

Xiaomi also stated through its official media XIAOMITIME that the reason for inviting Lu Zeyu, a former Tesla dexterous hand engineer, is simple: to make the robot's hands more dexterous and perform tasks more precisely, accelerate the engineering application of advanced control systems, and lay the foundation for future humanoid robots.

"With the addition of Lu Zeyu, a former member of Tesla's Optimus dexterous team, Xiaomi has taken another important step in its long - term strategy in the robotics field. Lu Zeyu stated in a public statement that he will lead the R & D of dexterous technology at Xiaomi Robotics and accelerate the engineering application of advanced control systems. Xiaomi has also been developing rapidly in the field of embodied intelligence. Recently, it open - sourced its MiMo - Embodied large - scale model and recruited several well - known researchers in the industry.

Xiaomi's hiring of Lu Zeyu highlights the company's ambition to improve the dexterity of robots - a key ability for the next - generation humanoid robot platform..."

At Tesla, "hand dexterity" remains a bottleneck. As a result, they have significantly lowered their mass - production expectations for robots in 2025. In March this year, they expected to produce more than 5,000 units, but by summer, the number had been reduced to 2,000. They hope to focus on breaking through the hand and structure design first.

According to Elon Musk, they are currently finalizing the design of Optimus V3. In his view, this product, which is "the greatest product in human history", will be mass - produced.

He said that this product will have "hands as dexterous as human hands". For this reason, Optimus V3 will be equipped with a complex hand design and an "AI mind" to understand reality. It is expected that each arm will be equipped with 26 actuators.

Xiaomi Robotics Team is Recruiting Top - Notch Talents

The Xiaomi Robotics Department is expanding rapidly. Currently, there are 257 open positions.

Among them, there are 12 positions in the field of dexterous hand robots, covering key aspects such as mechanical design, actuator R & D, and embodied grasping algorithms. They hope to attract several heavy - weight researchers in the industry to further strengthen the robotics technology stack.

In addition, in November, Xiaomi open - sourced its first cross - domain embodied large - scale model, MiMo - Embodied, a unified VLM that integrates the tasks of autonomous driving and embodied artificial intelligence into a single model.

The person deeply involved in MiMo - Embodied is the star talent that has attracted much attention this year - Luo Fuli, a post - 95 "genius girl" and a "former core researcher at DeepSeek".

After a period of "lying low", on November 12th, her new destination was finally officially announced: she has joined Xiaomi, is in charge of the MiMo team, and is focusing on the field of spatial intelligence.

It is worth noting that it took less than 10 days from the official announcement of Luo Fuli's joining Xiaomi to the release of the first result (MiMo - Embodied) by her team. This large - scale model successfully solved the long - standing knowledge transfer problem between autonomous driving and embodied intelligence.

Moreover, in actual tests, MiMo - Embodied ranked first in all 29 benchmark tests in the two fields, covering core capabilities such as environmental perception, path planning, grasping, and navigation, achieving a technical closed - loop of "autonomous driving + robots" and laying the foundation for future embodied AI.

It should be noted that Xiaomi was not the first to develop robots, nor does it have the most advanced technology. However, it is the one that truly introduced "robot dogs" to the public - it was the first to reduce the price of robot dogs to less than 10,000 yuan, only 1/50 of the price of Boston Dynamics' robot dogs at that time.

In 2019, when the four - legged robot dog market was booming, Xiaomi quietly established an embodied intelligence team within the company. Through a series of internal breakthroughs and cooperation with Dreame, it launched the first - generation four - legged robot: "Tiedan" in 2021. With its super cost - performance and high - tech features, Tiedan became an instant hit.

Subsequently, Xiaomi seized the opportunity, established the Xiaomi Robotics Laboratory in the same year, and planned to upgrade and mass - produce the second - generation Tiedan, aiming for commercialization. It also allocated more resources to the more challenging humanoid robot market, vowing to release a product earlier than Tesla.

In 2022, Xiaomi launched the humanoid robot - Tieda, becoming one of the first domestic companies to compete with Tesla's Optimus.

However, the enthusiasm for the robot business did not translate into strategic determination within Xiaomi. Due to the commercial failure of Tiedan 2, the lack of robot experience among senior management, and frequent adjustments in direction, the iteration of humanoid robots stagnated, and key robotics R & D personnel left Xiaomi one after another. Xiaomi's robot business, which started strong but ended weakly, fell into silence, and important robot conferences became rare.

In 2023, the humanoid robot market was booming, with many startups emerging. Rumors about Xiaomi continuing to bet on humanoid robots also emerged from time to time.

In the same year, Xiaomi established Beijing Xiaomi Robotics Technology Co., Ltd., planning to invest 2 billion yuan in five years to build a research and manufacturing base for humanoid robots in Yizhuang. It also jointly established the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center with Ubtech and Jingcheng Machinery and launched the "Tiengong" robot. This is regarded as an important signal that the domestic embodied intelligence industrial ecosystem is taking shape.

What really sparked public discussion was in 2024: Xiaomi Robotics was integrated into the Xiaomi Automobile system. On the surface, it seemed like a "demotion", but the industry's interpretation was the opposite - autonomous driving is the most practical form of robots, and car manufacturers are the best carriers for developing robots. Xiaomi has not stopped developing robots; it is just continuing to promote the development in a more practical and industrialized way.

In addition to Xiaomi Robotics "joining the automotive sector", there have also been continuous reports that Xiaomi is still iterating on humanoid robots internally, but the products have not been publicly unveiled.

In February this year, Xiaomi added two patents related to robotic hands and robots, indicating its in - depth layout in dexterous hand technology.

In addition to the continuous strengthening of its self - R & D system, Xiaomi's investment actions in the field of embodied intelligence are also worthy of attention.

In 2024, Xiaomi invested in a company in the field of embodied intelligence, "Xiaoyu Zhizao", which has completed a seed - round financing of 100 million yuan. It is understood that this is the first company in the field of embodied intelligence invested by Xiaomi Group.

More broadly, Xiaomi has built an investment network in embodied intelligence through institutions such as the Zhizao Fund, Yangtze River Industry Fund, and Shunwei Capital. It has invested in nearly 50 companies, with a total investment of over 15 billion yuan, covering core components, complete machine systems, and application scenarios.

One More Thing

In November, ByteDance fired Ren Zeyu, a Seed researcher, on the grounds of "multiple leaks". He was also the former person in charge of the upper limbs of Xiaomi's humanoid robot "Tieda".

Ren Zeyu is a well - known figure in the robotics field, with about 86,000 followers on Zhihu. He once detailed on his Zhihu homepage the mental journey of developing Xiaomi's robot "Tieda", describing the details of the arduous work, such as "living and eating in the company for 26 consecutive days" for the R & D.