DeepSeek invested 140.8 million yuan, about $20.8 million, in Unitree's Shanghai STAR Market IPO and agreed to jointly develop AI models for humanoid robots, according to a stock-exchange filing reported by Reuters via The Business Times. DeepSeek received 933,399 shares, or 2.31 percent of the strategic placement. The Hangzhou peers plan to pair DeepSeek's model stack with Unitree's motion control and embodied hardware, with reciprocal procurement preferences. The deal targets the scarce physical-world data needed for reliable manipulation, not just choreographed demos. DeepSeek's commercial strength is still language-model heavy, so vision and control gains from the partnership are not guaranteed.