☕️ Good morning friends,

People are back to work in China starting today, and we've compiled some really interesting numbers from the Spring Festival travel rush for you… 🧧

Also in this issue:

• AI2 Robotics: $144 million raised, valuation at $1.5 billion

• Cheap EV beats Tesla: Geely's Xingyuan sells 459,000 units for ~$10,000

• Japan works less: Only 1,654 hours in 2024 – less than the US with 1,796

P.S. Applications for our robotics tour in May have been open since yesterday. → Apply now.

Asia defies Wall Street crash: While the Dow dropped 800 points and gold jumped to $5,230, Asia showed strength. Hang Seng +2.5%, KOSPI up, STI higher. Trump's new 15% tariffs following the Supreme Court ruling dragged down US markets, but Asian exchanges held firm. Dollar weakness supports yen, won and yuan.

TOP BIT

Supreme Court overturns Trump's tariffs – China wins

The legal foundation of Donald Trump's global trade war has developed cracks. In a historic ruling, the US Supreme Court declared the global tariffs imposed by the Trump administration null and void.

For Beijing, this victory comes at just the right time – only weeks before the crucial summit meeting between Trump and Xi Jinping.

What the court decided

Trump had misused the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) to impose blanket tariffs. The judges completely overturned the legal basis.

Trump's reaction: Within hours, he imposed 15% global tariffs under a different law (Section 122 Trade Act) – which, however, requires congressional approval after 150 days.

The winners and losers of the reordering

Timing couldn't be better – for Beijing

Trump is traveling to Beijing at the end of March. Through the ruling, he has lost one of his most important "threats." China, on the other hand, is appearing more confident than ever before:

• Record surplus: With a trade surplus of $1.2 trillion last year, Beijing has proven that it can successfully redirect exports even without the US market.

• Raw materials leverage: China controls global supply chains for rare earths. Restrictions on magnets and minerals hit the US defense industry (e.g., F-35 jets) hard.

• Counter-demands: It is expected that Xi will demand massive concessions on the Taiwan question and US technology export controls in exchange for agricultural purchases (soybeans).

📊 All details & data: CNN, CNBC, The Straits Times

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MARKET BIT

China’s embodied AI goes public-ready: AI2 Robotics secures billion-yuan round

Shenzhen-based startup AI² Robotics has raised more than 1 billion yuan (~$144 million) in a Series B round, bringing its valuation to just under $1.5 billion.

The investor lineup includes Baidu, CRRC Corporation Ltd., several companies from the Tesla ecosystem, and Guotai Haitong Securities.

• The signal: with a major securities firm on board, this is not just growth capital — it’s IPO preparation.

From demo hype to capital markets readiness

Dancing robots are nice, but China’s embodied AI sector is clearly shifting from prototype showcases to industrialization. What matters now are scalable, repeatable deployments in real production environments.

AI² Robotics was founded in 2023 by Guo Yandong, a former chief scientist at XPeng and a Purdue PhD.

🤖 Robots in action:

• The wheeled dual-arm robot AlphaBot 2 is deployed in automotive and semiconductor manufacturing for sorting and labeling tasks.

• Systems are trained using a combination of simulation and real-world data.

• The company has also open-sourced its own visual-language-action (VLA) models.

The broader backdrop: in 2025, more than 20 Chinese robotics startups each raised around 1 billion yuan. Companies such as Galaxea AI, Galbot, Leju Robotics, and Unitree are preparing A-share listings or eyeing Hong Kong IPOs.

Listing or liquidation?

A year ago, a $42 million round was the largest financing in the sector. Today, five companies have each raised over $140 million within eight weeks.

The size of the round isn’t the key factor. The timing is. Capital is concentrating. The competition is shifting from “who has the best model?” to “who can generate recurring industrial revenue?”

The playbook is clear: reach the public markets quickly before consolidation tightens access to growth capital.

• Public listings are becoming a financial safety net. Investors point to UBTech in Hong Kong as an example, despite ongoing losses, its listing status provides strategic stability and continued access to capital.

But: industrialization requires a different level of capital than building prototypes. 2026 will be the inflection point. The companies that can convert embodied AI demos into durable industrial revenue will stay in the game.

👉 Full Story: DealStreetAsia, Caixin Global

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

Because 2026 is the Year of the Horse, Chinese people preferably booked destinations with "horse" in the name during the Spring Festival holiday – in Chinese: 马 (mǎ).

🇲🇾 Malaysia (马来西亚)
🇲🇻 Maldives (马尔代夫)
🇲🇹 Malta (马耳他)

The result: WeChat Pay transactions in Malaysia rose by 131%, in the Maldives even by 186%.

More exciting Spring Festival data:

• +190% – Italy's transaction growth over the holidays, fueled by the Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina.

• +430% – Increase in e-commerce transactions in Hong Kong over the holidays.

• 13.5 trillion steps – That's how far WeChat users walked together. 34x the distance Earth–Sun.

HIGHLIGHTS 

🇨🇳 Robot hype after Lunar New Year gala: Just two hours after China’s Spring Festival Gala aired, robot-related searches on JD.com jumped 300%, customer inquiries surged 460%, and orders rose 150%. Humanoid robots from Noetix, Unitree, MagicLab and Galbot appeared on the show. China’s robot shipments are expected to reach 18,000 units in 2025, up 650% from 2024, and climb further to 62,500 units in 2026.

🇨🇳 Low-cost EVs overtake Tesla and BYD: Geely sold more than 459,000 units of its Xingyuan EV (around $10,000) in 2025, topping China’s EV sales charts, followed by Wuling’s Hongguang Mini EV with 427,000 units. Tesla’s Model Y slipped to third place with 382,300 vehicles despite financing incentives, while BYD’s Seagull fell to fourth with 307,000 units. The dominance of sub-100,000-yuan models highlights the intense price war in China’s EV market.

🇸🇬 KKR buys school operator for $1.3 billion: US private equity firm KKR is acquiring a majority stake in XCL Education Holdings, which operates K-12 schools across Southeast Asia, including XCL World Academy in Singapore and the American School of Bangkok. KKR beat rival bidders and replaces TPG as the main owner. Deal volume in Southeast Asia has already reached $12 billion in 2026, four times higher than a year earlier.

🇯🇵 Japan works less than expected: Japanese employees worked an average of 1,654.2 hours in 2024, down 17.7 hours from the previous year and well below Americans at 1,796 hours or South Koreans at 1,865 hours. Since 1980, annual working hours have fallen from 2,121 hours by nearly 500 hours. The government appears to be making progress in tackling “karoshi” (過労死), or death from overwork.

FORTUNE COOKIE

Someone’s having a blast… 😅

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