☕️ Good morning friends,

Today we're on our way to Suzhou to inspect a station of our upcoming robotics tour. We've already seen many robots, but even we can't stop being amazed every time we visit a new robotics company here…

In today's issue:

• Xiaomi: Robot interns in the EV factory

• South Korea: Worst stock market day ever

• Japan: Supports startups after IPO

P.S. Partner of the week: Athenasia Consulting. Your #1 contact for everything related to HK business.

KOSPI -12%, record crash in Seoul: South Korea’s benchmark index plunged to 5,093 points, marking the largest single-day loss in KOSPI history. Circuit breakers halted trading for 20 minutes, while the won weakened past 1,500 per dollar for the first time in 17 years.

TOP BIT

Xiaomi: robot interns in the EV factory

Xiaomi has started deploying its self-developed humanoid robots in e-car production. 

In an initial test run at the Beijing plant, the machines proved they can already autonomously handle complex assembly tasks and keep pace with the rapid tempo of their human colleagues.

Precision work in a 76-second cycle

The robots are currently being used in the die-casting area – one of the most physically demanding zones in manufacturing.

• The task: Picking up and precisely placing nuts as well as transporting material boxes.

• The performance: In a test run, the robots achieved 3 hours of autonomous operating time with a success rate of 90.2%.

• The tempo: With a cycle time of 76 seconds per component, the robots meet exactly the assembly line specifications for the fastest production cycles.

Brainpower instead of remote control: the VLA model

Xiaomi achieves the breakthrough through an in-house Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model with 4.7 billion parameters.

• Learning capability: Instead of rigidly programming every movement, the robot learns through reinforcement learning in virtual environments (simulations), which are then transferred directly to the hardware.

• Multisensory: By combining visual data, tactile sense, and joint position perception, the AI can correct obstacles or misplacements in real time.

⚠️ Reality check: more than just marketing?

Xiaomi President Lu Weibing currently still refers to the robots as "interns."

Despite the respectable 90% success rate, the remaining 10% errors are still too high for a fully autonomous fleet in the harsh factory environment. Nevertheless, the trend is irreversible: China is estimated to control over 60% of the global $9 trillion market for humanoids by 2050.

📊 All details & data: CNBC, Yahoo Finance, Interesting Engineering

P.S.: See robots live with us in May? Click here.

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MARKET BIT

KOSPI -12%: South Korea's worst stock market day ever

South Korea’s benchmark index KOSPI plunged 12.06% on Wednesday, while the small-cap KOSDAQ index dropped 14% — both record single-day losses.

Combined with the previous day (-7.24%), this marks the largest two-day crash since 2008.

The details

Trigger: The coordinated U.S.–Israeli airstrikes on Iran over the weekend. Oil prices surged, putting particular pressure on South Korea, the world’s eighth-largest crude oil consumer.

Circuit breakers were triggered on both markets simultaneously, halting trading for 20 minutes.

• Samsung Electronics: -11.74%

• SK Hynix: -9.58%

• Hyundai Motor: -15.8%

• LG Energy Solution: -11.58%

Out of more than 800 KOSPI stocks, only 10 closed higher — almost all of them energy companies.

The won briefly broke past 1,500 per dollar, a level last seen in March 2009 during the global financial crisis.

Institutional investors sold a net 588.8 billion won. Retail and foreign investors stepped in to buy but were unable to absorb the sell-off.

Context

The KOSPI had already surged nearly 50% this year, driven by AI optimism, a global chip shortage, and corporate governance reforms.

Retail investors piled in using leverage, pushing margin debt to record highs. In some cases investors used only 30–40% of their own capital, borrowing the rest.

Now those same positions are being forcibly liquidated. What accelerated the rally is now amplifying the downside just as quickly.

The 12.06% daily drop even exceeds the September 12, 2001 decline (-12.02%), when markets crashed following the terrorist attacks.

Despite the crash, the KOSPI remains up 21% year-to-date. Meanwhile, the government has activated a 100-trillion-won market stabilization program.

👉 Sources: Korea Herald, Business Times, Yonhap

HIGHLIGHTS 

🇰🇷 AWS doubles down on Korea: Amazon Web Services plans to invest over $9bn in South Korea by 2031, the largest single foreign investment in the country. New AI data centers are planned for Incheon and Gyeonggi Province. According to AWS, 60% of Korean companies already use AI agents, yet half cite a lack of clear guidelines as their biggest obstacle. South Korea aims to become one of the world's top three AI nations by 2027.

🇹🇭 Panasonic bets on Thailand as battery hub: Panasonic Energy is positioning Thailand as a core production base for its global dry battery business. The local plant has produced over 20 billion batteries to date and exports to more than 40 countries. Annual battery demand in the APAC region stands at around 3 billion units and keeps growing. The company targets 5% annual growth through 2030, driven mainly by rising demand across Southeast Asia.

🇯🇵 Japan backs startups beyond IPO: Japan's Ministry of Economy is expanding its loan guarantee program to include startups that went public within the past five years and are still posting losses. The government covers up to 50% of loan amounts, capped at 2.5 billion yen ($15.9m). Japanese startups often list too early - their average IPO valuation sits at just one-tenth of the US level. The government is also offering up to 5 billion yen in subsidies for mass production.

🌏 Asia's answer to Polymarket: Prediction market platform Opinion Labs, funded by Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao's family office YZi Labs, processed nearly $2bn in weekly trading volume in late January. 42% of its users come from Asia, compared to 19% for Polymarket and just 7% for Kalshi. The platform attracts users with a crypto-based rewards system. Momentum is fading though: late February weekly volume dropped to just $604m, less than half the competition.

MORE ASIABITS

• Free guide: AI Automation for Beginners

• Humanoid Robotics Report: The $6 Billion Bet

• Interactive tool: China Dependency Index™

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