CATL

Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL) is a Chinese battery manufacturer based in Ningde, Fujian province, and the largest maker of batteries for electric vehicles and grid storage in the world. SNE Research, a South Korean market-research firm, put CATL's share of global EV battery installations at 40.2 percent for January through May 2026, nearly three times the 14.4 percent held by its nearest competitor, BYD ^[3]. The company reported first-half 2026 revenue of 276.92 billion yuan, up 54.8 percent year on year, and net profit of 43.28 billion yuan, about 6.37 billion US dollars ^[5].

CATL is covered on this wiki for two specific reasons rather than because it builds AI systems itself. First, its cells increasingly power the humanoid robots and mobile machines that embodied AI depends on: in June 2026 the company signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Chinese robot developer Galbot and put the first heavy-duty humanoid running on CATL batteries to work on its own production lines ^[1]. Second, CATL says it has turned machine learning on its own laboratories, using large models and autonomous synthesis rigs to screen candidate battery materials far faster than human researchers can ^[15]. Neither claim makes CATL an AI company, but both put it in the supply chain that physical AI runs on.

The firm was founded in 2011 as the automotive-battery arm spun out of Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), a consumer-battery maker that chairman Zeng Yuqun, who also uses the English name Robin Zeng, had co-founded in 1999 ^[20]. Zeng, who holds a doctorate in physics from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, remains chairman ^[23]. CATL's primary share listing is in Shenzhen; in May 2025 it added a secondary listing in Hong Kong that raised about 4.6 billion US dollars, the largest listing on that exchange in four years ^[10][11].

Background and history

CATL grew out of ATL, which Zeng and his partners built in the late 1990s into a supplier of lithium-polymer cells for consumer electronics. In 2011 the electric-vehicle battery business was separated into a new company, Contemporary Amperex Technology, based in Zeng's home city of Ningde ^[20]. The timing lined up with China's push to subsidise electric vehicles, and CATL became a preferred domestic supplier as that market expanded. Vice-chairman Huang Shilin, another ATL veteran, was among the co-founders ^[20].

The company went public on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2018 and spent the following years signing supply deals with most large automakers while building plants in China, Germany and Hungary. By the early 2020s it was the single largest battery supplier in the world by installed capacity, a position it has held since. In 2023 SNE Research credited CATL with 36.8 percent of global EV battery use, or 259.7 GWh, up 40.8 percent on the year and well ahead of BYD's 15.8 percent ^[4]. Its lead has widened rather than narrowed: in the first five months of 2026 CATL installed 188.4 GWh, up 22.9 percent, out of a global total of 469.2 GWh ^[3].

Much of that scale rests on lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistry. LFP cells use no cobalt or nickel, cost less than the nickel-rich chemistries common in Western and Korean cells, and tolerate more charge cycles, at the price of lower energy density. CATL and BYD together turned LFP from a budget option into the default for mass-market electric cars and for stationary storage, and CATL is also the largest supplier of batteries for grid-scale energy storage systems ^[20].

Market position and customers

CATL supplies a large share of the world's major automakers. Its publicly reported customers include Tesla, BMW, Volkswagen and Ford among Western manufacturers, and Chinese brands such as NIO, XPeng, Li Auto, Geely and SAIC Motor ^[20]. Its Qilin battery first shipped in Geely's Zeekr brand in 2023; the Zeekr 001 offered a claimed range of up to 1,032 km on China's CLTC test cycle ^[9]. The breadth of that customer base is why disruptions to CATL, whether commercial or political, ripple across the global EV industry.

The Hong Kong listing in May 2025 was CATL's most visible financial event of the decade. The company had filed for the secondary listing in February 2025, aiming to raise at least 5 billion US dollars in what was then the largest Hong Kong offering since Kuaishou's 2021 debut ^[11]. Shares priced at HK$263 and rose 16.43 percent on the first day of trading, 20 May 2025, closing at HK$306.2 and valuing the company at about HK$1.38 trillion ^[10]. Proceeds were earmarked largely for the company's overseas expansion, including its plant in Hungary.

Battery technologies

CATL's product range spans fast-charging lithium cells, sodium-ion cells, high-energy demonstrators and grid-storage systems. The company packages many of these using its cell-to-pack (CTP) design, which omits the intermediate module housings found in conventional packs so that more of the pack volume is filled with active cells. Its third-generation CTP product, the Qilin battery, reaches a volume utilisation of about 72 percent and cell-level energy densities of roughly 205 Wh/kg in LFP form and 265 Wh/kg in nickel-manganese-cobalt form ^[22][9].

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The Shenxing line is CATL's answer to charging speed, the main practical complaint about electric cars. The first Shenxing battery, an LFP pack unveiled in August 2023, was marketed as adding about 400 km of range in a 10-minute charge ^[6]. At its April 2025 technology day the company showed a second-generation Shenxing that it called the first LFP battery to combine an 800 km range with a 12C peak charging rate, adding up to 2.5 km of range per second at a peak power of 1.3 megawatts ^[2]. A European variant, Shenxing Pro, followed in September 2025 ^[7].

The most consequential recent launch is Naxtra, CATL's sodium-ion brand, also unveiled in April 2025. Sodium is far more abundant and cheaper than lithium, and it performs better in cold weather, but early sodium cells stored much less energy. CATL claimed 175 Wh/kg for the Naxtra passenger-car cell, which it described as the highest energy density yet achieved for a sodium-ion battery, along with a 500 km range, more than 10,000 charge cycles, and retention of 90 percent of its power at -40C ^[2]. A 24-volt sodium-ion battery for heavy trucks was scheduled for June 2025 and the passenger-car cell for December 2025; the passenger cell later passed China's GB 38031-2025 safety standard in September 2025 ^[2][21]. Commercialisation has moved quickly: CATL and Changan jointly showed a production sodium-ion passenger vehicle for a mid-2026 launch, the company said it expected 10,000 to 20,000 electric vehicles to carry its sodium cells during 2026, and it signed a three-year, 60 GWh sodium-ion storage order with HyperStrong, described as the largest such order to date ^[17][19][18]. In June 2026 it also launched a field-validated sodium-ion grid-storage product under its TENER brand ^[16].

At the high-energy end, CATL's condensed battery, shown at the Shanghai auto show in April 2023, claimed a single-cell energy density of up to 500 Wh/kg and was pitched at civil electric aircraft as well as cars ^[8]. CATL said it would have mass-production capability that year, though the cell has functioned mainly as a technology demonstrator rather than a mass product. The 2025 Freevoy pack, by contrast, is a dual-power architecture that pairs two chemistries and uses a self-forming anode to raise volumetric energy density by up to 60 percent, with its top configuration targeting a range of more than 1,500 km ^[2].

Batteries for robotics and embodied AI

The clearest link between CATL and artificial intelligence is power. A humanoid robot or an autonomous mobile robot is, in energy terms, a battery pack that has to survive thousands of charge cycles, deliver high bursts of current for actuators, and fail safely around people. Those are the same requirements CATL already engineers for electric vehicles, which is why battery makers have become suppliers to the robotics industry as humanoid robots move toward commercial deployment.

In June 2026 CATL made that move explicit. It signed a global strategic cooperation agreement with Galbot, a Chinese developer of embodied-AI robots, and announced that the first heavy-duty humanoid powered by CATL batteries, Galbot's S1, had gone into service inside a CATL factory ^[1]. The robot handles material movement and picking on the company's battery-module and pack production lines. CATL described the S1 as a dual-arm system with a 50 kg payload, vision-based centimetre-level positioning, and up to eight hours of continuous operation, running on a cell design the company said reached a failure rate in the parts-per-billion range, using particle-size-graded cathodes, low-lithium-consumption anodes and a self-healing electrolyte ^[1].

That single deployment should not be oversold. It is one robot line at one factory, and CATL has not disclosed volume orders from the better-known humanoid programs such as Tesla Optimus, Figure AI, Unitree or Boston Dynamics. What it signals is positioning: as the humanoid robot market grows, the firms that already make cells at automotive scale are the ones able to supply it, and CATL is using its own plants as a proving ground for physical AI hardware. The company's role here is that of a component supplier to robotics, not a robotics developer.

AI in battery research and manufacturing

CATL's second connection to AI runs the other way: it uses AI to design its products. In May 2026 the company's chief scientist, Wu Kai, described how machine learning had changed battery development from what he called empirical trial-and-error toward on-demand design ^[15]. According to Wu, using AI to pre-screen candidate materials had cut the time to evaluate new battery chemistries by about two orders of magnitude. In solid-state battery work, he said, the team had pinpointed seven target materials in three months and improved ionic conductivity with AI support, and the approach had been applied to cathode coating materials, high-voltage electrolytes and perovskite passivators ^[15].

The more striking claim concerns manufacturing. Wu said CATL had built large-model-driven, high-throughput autonomous laboratories that now handle roughly 70 to 80 percent of the company's material synthesis needs, running the full loop from feeding reagents through reactions, separation, purification and analysis without a human in the loop ^[15]. He argued that AI's ability to optimise process parameters had begun to exceed the understanding of experienced engineers ^[15].

This is AI-driven materials discovery of the kind pursued in academia and at other labs, including projects such as DeepMind's GNoME, applied to a commercial battery portfolio. It belongs alongside the broader use of AI for science in chemistry and materials. The figures come from CATL itself and have not been independently audited, so they are best read as the company's account of its own R&D rather than verified benchmarks. Even discounted, they describe a mainstream industrial adoption of machine learning rather than a marketing gloss.

US political scrutiny

CATL's size and its origins have made it a recurring target of US policy. The National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal 2024, signed in December 2023, barred the US Department of Defense from procuring batteries produced by CATL and several other Chinese firms, a restriction set to take effect later in the decade ^[20]. In January 2025 the Defense Department went further and added CATL, alongside the technology group Tencent, to its list of Chinese military companies maintained under Section 1260H of the fiscal 2021 NDAA ^[20]. CATL rejected the designation as a mistake and said it had never engaged in any military-related business.

The 1260H list is not a sanctions list and carries few immediate legal penalties. Its effect is cumulative: the Pentagon has increasingly used the designation to restrict a company's ability to contract with the US military or receive federal research funding, and it serves as a warning to US investors ^[14]. Updates through 2026 extended the list to more Chinese electric-vehicle and battery makers, including BYD, NIO, CALB and Eve Energy ^[14]. The Hong Kong listing itself became a flashpoint: a US House committee focused on strategic competition with China pressed JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America over their roles in the offering, arguing that CATL's designation made underwriting it inappropriate ^[20].

The most concrete dispute has been in Michigan. In February 2023 Ford announced a 3.5 billion dollar plant in Marshall to build LFP cells using technology licensed from CATL ^[12]. The structure was unusual: Ford would wholly own the plant, the first US battery factory owned outright by an automaker, while CATL supplied the cell technology and operating know-how under license rather than taking an equity stake ^[12][13]. That design was meant partly to let the batteries qualify for Inflation Reduction Act subsidies, and it drew objections from Republican lawmakers who argued the credits would flow indirectly to CATL ^[13]. Ford paused the project in mid-2023, then resumed it in November 2023 at a reduced scope of 2 billion dollars and about 20 GWh, down from an initial 35 GWh ^[13]. The plant was completed and began producing prismatic LFP cells in June 2026, after renewed congressional questions when Ford added energy-storage output to its plans ^[13].

See also

• Galbot
• BYD
• Humanoid robot market
• Physical AI
• AI for science
• Tesla

References

1. ^CATL. "First Heavy-Duty Humanoid Robot Powered by CATL Batteries Goes Live in CATL Factory." 24 June 2026. catl.com/...6881
2. ^CnEVPost. "CATL unveils sodium-ion, 12C Shenxing, Freevoy dual-power batteries to show tech muscle." 21 April 2025. cnevpost.com/...nxing-freevoy-dual-power-batteries
3. ^CnEVPost. "Global EV battery market share in January-May 2026: CATL 40.2%, BYD 14.4%." 3 July 2026. cnevpost.com/...-battery-market-share-jan-may-2026
4. ^CnEVPost. "Global EV battery market share in 2023" (SNE Research, released 7 February 2024). cnevpost.com/...al-ev-battery-market-share-in-2023
5. ^CnEVPost. "CATL H1 net profit jumps 42%, announces massive share buyback." 24 July 2026. cnevpost.com/...catl-h1-profit-share-buyback
6. ^CnEVPost. "CATL unveils Shenxing Battery, claims 400 km range on 10-minute charge." 16 August 2023. cnevpost.com/...catl-unveils-shenxing-battery
7. ^CnEVPost. "CATL launches Shenxing Pro battery for European EV market." 8 September 2025. cnevpost.com/...unches-shenxing-pro-battery-europe
8. ^CnEVPost. "CATL unveils Condensed Battery for electric aircrafts and EVs." 19 April 2023. cnevpost.com/...catl-unveils-condensed-battery
9. ^CnEVPost. "Zeekr starts delivery of Zeekr 001 with CATL Qilin Battery, CLTC range up to 1,032 km." 16 May 2023. cnevpost.com/...ery-of-001-with-catl-qilin-battery
10. ^CnEVPost. "CATL surges over 16% in HK stock market debut." 20 May 2025. cnevpost.com/...catl-hk-stock-market-debut
11. ^CnEVPost. "CATL files for listing in Hong Kong." 11 February 2025. cnevpost.com/...catl-files-for-hk-listing
12. ^CnEVPost. "Ford to build $3.5 billion LFP battery plant in Michigan with CATL's technology." 14 February 2023. cnevpost.com/...tery-plant-michigan-with-catl-tech
13. ^CnEVPost. "Ford's CATL-backed battery plant completed after repeated setbacks." 30 June 2026. cnevpost.com/...atl-backed-battery-plant-completed
14. ^CnEVPost. "US adds BYD, Nio and EV supply chain firms to military-linked list." 9 June 2026. cnevpost.com/...upply-chain-firms-to-military-list
15. ^CnEVPost. "CATL chief scientist explains how AI accelerates battery R&D." 13 May 2026. cnevpost.com/...ains-how-ai-accelerates-battery-rd
16. ^CATL. "CATL Debuts World's First Field-Validated Sodium-Ion BESS, Bringing Sodium Storage to Commercial Reality." 22 June 2026. catl.com/...6861
17. ^CnEVPost. "CATL's sodium-ion batteries begin deployment in production-ready passenger vehicles." 5 February 2026. cnevpost.com/...t-in-production-passenger-vehicles
18. ^CnEVPost. "CATL secures world's largest sodium-ion battery order in major tech shift." 27 April 2026. cnevpost.com/...s-largest-sodium-ion-battery-order
19. ^CnEVPost. "CATL expects at least 10,000 EVs to use its sodium batteries this year." 24 June 2026. cnevpost.com/...ts-10000-evs-sodium-batteries-2026
20. ^Wikipedia. "CATL." (Corporate history; customer list; December 2023 NDAA procurement bar; January 2025 Section 1260H designation; House committee pressure on the Hong Kong listing.) en.wikipedia.org/...CATL
21. ^Wikipedia. "Sodium-ion battery." (CATL first-generation sodium cell energy density; Naxtra specifications; GB 38031-2025 certification.) en.wikipedia.org/...Sodium-ion_battery
22. ^CATL. "Technology" (Qilin cell-to-pack energy density and volume utilisation; super-fast charging; service life). catl.com/...technology
23. ^Wikipedia. "Zeng Yuqun." (Doctorate in physics from the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2006; founder and chairman of CATL.) en.wikipedia.org/...Zeng_Yuqun