- Senior AI architect departs Hangzhou embodied AI startup amid sector hiring boom
- Move comes as embodied AI competition intensify in China, with top-tier talent poised to set up shop on their own
The head of the embodied intelligence unit at Spirit AI, a top-tier Chinese humanoid robotics developer, has left the company a month ago, financial news outlet Lanjinger reported today.
This marks a senior leadership change just days after the Hangzhou-based startup announced a major new funding round valued at 1 billion yuan (146 million), underscoring the rapid shifts unfolding in China’s fast-growing embodied AI sector.
Xie Junyuan, who led Spirit AI’s embodied intelligence team, has departed about a month ago, sources familiar with the matter said. The company has not responded to media inquiries as of press time.
Sources said that Xie had already stepped down a month ago and that his role has since been filled. Corporate records show he exited an employee stock ownership subsidiary of Spirit AI in March after previously holding a 15% stake.
Xie holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Washington and previously worked as a senior scientist at Amazon between 2017 and 2019, where he was an early creator and core architect of the deep-learning framework MXNet.
He later joined ByteDance as a senior AI expert and federated learning system architect. During his stint there from 2019 to 2025, he oversaw optimization of the company’s content recommendation system and development of its Fedlearner platform, as well as privacy computing and large-model deployment.
He joined Spirit AI in March 2025 to lead development of embodied foundation models and team building, reporting to co-founder and chief scientist Gao Yang.
Industry observers said his departure could signal entrepreneurial ambitions, as investment in embodied intelligence accelerates, Lanjinger said.
The sector drew more than 735 billion yuan in domestic financing across over 740 deals in 2025, fueling intense competition for founders with deep research credentials and large-scale engineering experience.
Demand for the top minds of the industry has surged alongside capital inflows. Humanoid robot maker UBTech recently initiated a global search for a chief embodied intelligence scientist, offering compensation packages of up to 124 million yuan annually, highlighting the escalating race for top AI expertise.
