Chinese lab DeepSeek invested 140.8 million yuan ($20.8 million) in robot maker Unitree's Shanghai STAR Market IPO and agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid machines, Reuters reported from a stock-exchange filing. DeepSeek received 933,399 shares, or 2.31 percent of the strategic placement, while both Hangzhou firms pledged preferential procurement for training services and robots. The aim is a physical-world brain for cheap walking machines. Why it matters: China's open-model leader is tying capital and roadmaps to embodied hardware. Caveat: an IPO stake and a procurement pact are not yet a shipped humanoid controller.