What changed
The 2026 AI Cloud 100 China list was released in Shanghai on October 16, with DeepSeek retaining first place, followed by Moonshot AI and StepFun.智元机器人 and 银河通用 ranked fourth and fifth, while 千寻智能 entered the top 10.
The bigger shift was below the leaderboard: 52 companies appeared for the first time, including 35 from physical AI. Unicorns rose from 33 to 67, and average unicorn valuation climbed from 12.5 billion yuan to 21.9 billion yuan.
Why it matters
China’s AI business map is widening beyond models and software. Robots, autonomous driving, dexterous hands and the underlying systems that let machines operate in the physical world supplied 67% of this year’s new entrants.
The money is moving in the same direction. Forty-four companies on the list were valued above 10 billion yuan, and 26 of those were physical-AI firms. Using the lower end of each reported valuation range, the companies together exceeded 1 trillion yuan in value.
That makes physical AI the list’s clearest concentration of high-value newcomers. It does not yet show which firms have strong revenue, deployments, profitability or technical performance, and the valuations may reflect either completed financings or independent assessments. But the ranking makes one point plainly: the next contest is increasingly about putting intelligence into machines that can move, drive and manipulate the world.
This was the fifth edition of the list, which has been published annually since 2022. The change from one year to the next is therefore more than a fresh ranking. It is a snapshot of where China’s private AI market is placing its next large bets.
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