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🧠 I. Large AI Models

Baidu Q2 AI revenue share exceeds half for two consecutive quarters; two Wall Street funds increase holdings

Baidu's total revenue for Q2 2026 was 31.3 billion RMB. Of the 25.2 billion RMB in general business income, AI accounted for 50%. GPU cloud grew 283% year-over-year, marking four consecutive quarters of triple-digit growth. 13F filings show Duquesne Family Office under Druckenmiller initiated a position in Baidu ADRs in Q2, and another Wall Street fund is also increasing its stake. Robin Li stated that ERNIE Bot will return to the first tier, with primary listing in Hong Kong completed by year-end—the market's pricing logic for Baidu is shifting from "search company" to "AI platform company."

Anthropic annualized revenue breaks $65 billion; IPO narrative fully realized

Bloomberg reports that Anthropic's annualized revenue has exceeded $65 billion, setting a record for AI startups. The company also plans to adjust its equity structure before IPO, granting the CEO additional voting rights to maintain control. The $65 billion revenue scale is approaching some traditional software giants, further raising market expectations for its IPO valuation, while valuation anchors for competitors like OpenAI and xAI shift upward simultaneously.

OpenRouter cuts price for OpenAI GPT-5.6 Sol calls by half

The world's largest AI aggregation platform, OpenRouter, announced a roughly 50% reduction in fees for OpenAI's strongest model, GPT-5.6 Sol, with input prices dropping to $2.5 per million tokens. Even the strongest models are starting to trade volume for price. Inference cost reductions and intensifying competition are progressing in sync, which is a tangible benefit for developers and reflects increased competition on the supply side of top models.

• Xiaomi MiMo's first personal desktop app coming soon — Xiaomi CFO Lin Shiwei disclosed in the earnings call that MiMo will launch a desktop application to complete office and life tasks in one stop, with next-generation models currently in training. Phone manufacturers are collectively entering AI office work; the desktop is the next battlefield.
• Stripe plans to acquire OpenRouter for $7 billion — A 50-person "water seller" company sold for a sky-high price. Capital that entered three months ago has multiplied several times. This could become the largest M&A deal in the AI infrastructure sector in 2026. Those selling shovels during the gold rush got rich first; the wave of acquisitions for AI ecosystem entry points is just beginning.
• AI chip newcomer Etched doubles valuation to $21 billion in one month — Completed a $700 million funding round, led by quant giant Jane Street after testing the chips. Currently, capital heat in the AI chip track continues; the money hasn't been fully distributed yet.

💻 II. AI Software

Doubao task upgrade: Virtual desktop directly operates Windows computers

Doubao's virtual desktop is based on more general GUI capabilities. Without MCP, APIs, plugins, or CLI, it can understand interfaces and complete operations, supporting cross-software tasks without taking over the user's working environment. Skipping APIs to directly "look at the screen and operate" is the most universal agent interaction method, allowing Agents to finally reach all legacy enterprise applications.

Alibaba's "Qianwen Office" integrates with WeCom, covering all three major office platforms

Alibaba's Agent product "Qianwen Office" officially integrated with WeCom. Having previously integrated with DingTalk and Feishu, it now supports all three mainstream collaborative office platforms in China. Office scenarios have become the main battlefield for domestic AI agents. Whoever controls the enterprise context controls the next layer of the platform.

• WeCom 5.0.10 opens up CLI and MCP — Mainstream Agents like WorkBuddy, DeepSeek Harness, and MiniMax Code can directly connect to WeCom, calling upon 10 major office modules including documents, spreadsheets, emails, and meetings. WeCom's enterprise side becomes the "connective tissue" of the Agent ecosystem.
• Walmart employees have a new duty: helping AI agents "correct errors" — Retail scenarios are complex; mistakes made by AI in shelving, checkout, and inventory management need human backup. "AI works, humans backstop" is becoming the standard posture. The real cost of AI implementation is starting to become visible.
• Google transfers A2A protocol to Agentic AI Foundation — Cross-vendor agent interoperability standards move toward open governance. Google shifts from "player" to "referee," and the standard war for agent interconnection begins.
• OpenAI slows model development after hacking incident — After its training system was breached by a "malicious agent," OpenAI announced slowing down development pace and rectifying R&D and training systems. CEO Sam Altman said, "This is a good time to slow down," publicly hitting the brakes on the capability arms race for the first time.
• OpenAI launches teen version of ChatGPT — Designed specifically for users under 18, integrating parental supervision and content filtering. Teens have long been secretly using AI; the official version is late, but proactively creating a "guarded" version for minors is better than being forced to change by regulators.
• Claude users cancel subscriptions due to AI watermarking — After Anthropic added watermarks to Claude-generated text, some users unsubscribed citing "quality degradation." Balancing watermarking and user experience has become a new challenge in the compliance era; the dilemma between preventing abuse and maintaining quality is becoming apparent.

🤖 III. Humanoid Robots

Unitree Robotics lists on STAR Market today; the first humanoid robot stock officially debuts

On August 19, Unitree Robotics went public on the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market. During the roadshow, Wang Xingxing stayed nearly three extra hours beyond the scheduled three hours to answer questions item by item. He loved robots since childhood and predicted the technical direction as early as 2016. Unitree's pricing and first-day performance will set the valuation anchor for the entire Chinese robotics sector; subsequent robot companies planning to list will use this as a reference.

Xiaomi robots to debut at World Robot Conference

Xiaomi Group President Lu Weibing revealed in the earnings call that Xiaomi's robots will appear publicly for the first time, with smart manufacturing factory production lines as the preferred landing scenario. Solve production line implementation first, then talk about entering homes; Xiaomi's robot route is pragmatic.

• Integral AI goes bankrupt: Cold water on the robotics gold rush — Bloomberg reported the bankruptcy of a robotics startup. Commercialization barriers remain high, cooling down the overheated primary market and reminding the market that there is still distance between the robotics narrative and revenue realization.
• Building a "Second World" for robots: Chinese team cited by π0 releases new world simulator — Letting robots practice actions like pouring beer and opening bottle caps in a virtual world closer to reality before deploying on real machines. World simulators are the invisible arms race in the robotics industry; Chinese teams are holding their own.
• Nvidia Jensen Huang's daughter visits LG robot factory — Four days after signing, Huang Minshan, Senior Director of Nvidia Omniverse and Robotics Product Marketing, visited LG's robot data factory. Nvidia's "data factory" route for its robotics ecosystem is beginning to land.

🚗 IV. Autonomous Driving

Tesla prepares Cybercab taxi service, launching in Austin as early as this month

According to The Information, Tesla has notified employees to prepare for the launch of its Cybercab autonomous taxi service, potentially going live in Austin, Texas, as early as this month. The vehicle is designed specifically for driverless operation, with no steering wheel. The "Tesla Moment" for Robotaxi is approaching, providing a direct test of the operational capabilities of driverless fleets.

WeRide Q2 revenue reaches 232 million RMB, up 82% YoY

Overseas revenue grew 164% YoY and 169% QoQ, with gross margin rising to 37.5%, beating market expectations. Growth is improving, but the market remains cautious. Valuation repair requires sustained performance delivery; whether overseas expansion can achieve compound growth is the core watch point.

• Hesai Technology net profit for first half reaches 88.865 million RMB, up 234.9% YoY — Revenue reached 1.541 billion RMB, up 25.1%. The profitability of the lidar leader continues to be validated. Supply chain maturity is rising; autonomous driving hardware is no longer a cash-burning black hole.
• Starry Sea V6 rolls off production line: Only car in the 100k RMB class equipped with Huawei ADS 5 SE — Achieves urban navigation assistance driving using 10 cameras. Huawei's intelligent driving is accelerating its penetration into the 100k RMB price band. "Intelligent driving entering ordinary households" is turning from slogan to reality.
• Seres AITO full series undergoes extreme 7,000 km test in 7 days — Industry-first use of mass-produced cars for full-scenario intelligent driving experience. Running 7,000 km from the West to Shanghai in 7 days is more convincing than launch event PPTs.
• Xiaomi net profit drops 37.86% in first half — Net profit attributable to parent company shareholders was 14.186 billion RMB, down 37.86% YoY. Selling more cars and higher-priced phones, but overall profit quality is under pressure. The cash-burning phase of car manufacturing is not over; the market is watching for the inflection point in auto business gross margins in the second half.
• Yijing X9 pre-sale starts at 299,800 RMB — The first model of the Yijing brand, a full-stack collaboration between Dongfeng and Huawei ADS, opened for pre-sale. Targeting multi-member family scenarios, Huawei's intelligent driving "circle of friends" gains another member, and the HarmonyOS Smart Mobility map continues to expand.
• Deepal G318 and BYD Tang 8 Series confirmed for Chengdu Auto Show — The new Deepal G318 features Huawei ADS 5 Pro and HarmonyOS cockpit. The BYD Tang 8 Series comes standard with God's Eye B across the range, with a maximum pure electric range of 850km. The Chengdu Auto Show on August 21 will see a concentrated debut of new smart cars.

🌐 V. Physical AI and World Models

ECB economists warn: AI is brewing a market correction

European and US stocks have hit new highs amid the AI boom, but ECB economists warn that historically, extreme valuation concentration and rapid rises are often followed by corrections. The fragility of the AI narrative is accumulating. When central bank economists openly discuss risks, the market treats this as a signal. The pullback pressure on AI-heavyweight stocks is worth vigilance.

Nvidia bets $105 billion on 8GW compute power electricity

Nvidia provides up to $105 billion in guarantee support for OpenAI's data center project in Ohio. The project is built and operated by SoftBank subsidiary SB Energy, with OpenAI signing a 20-year lease. Nvidia additionally invests $1.5 billion in SB Energy. Compute power electricity has become the new bottleneck for AI infrastructure; chip giants are personally stepping in to solve "where does the electricity come from."

• Tsinghua team uses AI to optimize AI, creating domestic trillion-token factory — The Recursive Self-Improve route lands in the domestic computing ecosystem. AI Infra enters the era of self-evolution, adding empirical evidence for the large-scale training capabilities of domestic computing.
• **Groq pivots to Neocloud: Completes $3.5 billion valuation