A man walks past the Alibaba logo displayed at a booth at the China International Supply Chain Expo in Beijing, China, on July 16, 2025.
Florence Law | Reuters
alibaba The company on Tuesday unveiled an artificial intelligence model designed to power robotics, as more tech giants enter the fast-growing field.
The model, called LynnBrain, is designed to help robots understand the physical world around them and identify objects.
A video released by Alibaba’s DAMO Academy shows a robot identifying fruits and placing them in a basket. Although these tasks seem simple, they involve complex AI that controls the robot’s understanding and behavior of individual items.
Robotics falls under an umbrella term called “physical AI,” which also includes machines that rely on artificial intelligence, such as self-driving cars. China is prioritizing this area as it competes with the United States for technological leadership.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been one of the most bullish on the sector in the technology industry, calling AI and robotics a “multi-trillion dollar growth opportunity” last year.
For Alibaba, the RynnBrain model is an entry point into the robotics market and continues the momentum seen with the Qwen family of cutting-edge AI models originating from China.
Alibaba is not alone in creating models designed for physical AI. These AI “world models” are being developed by technology giants around the world. Nvidia has a number of models for training and running AI in robotics under its “Cosmos” brand, but Gemini Robotics-ER 1.5 is its own version of Google DeepMind.
Elon Musk, one of the biggest proponents of robotics, has designed his own AI with: teslaOptimus.
China appears to be ahead of the United States, especially when it comes to humanoid robots, machines designed to walk and move like humans, and companies plan to ramp up production this year.
As with other models, Alibaba is pursuing an open source strategy with LynnBrain, which developers can use for free. The open source model has been key to Alibaba expanding the use of its model to developers around the world.
