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| Noetix N2 | |
|---|---|
| General information | |
| Manufacturer | Noetix Robotics |
| Country of origin | China |
| Year introduced | 2025 |
| Status | In production |
| Price | 39,900 yuan (~$5,500 USD) |
| Height | 118 cm (3 ft 10 in) |
| Weight | 30 kg (66 lb) |
| Degrees of freedom | 18 (5 per leg, 4 per arm) |
| Peak joint torque | 150 Nm |
| Top speed | 3.5 m/s (12.6 km/h / 7.8 mph) |
| Compute | NVIDIA Jetson Orin (8 GB VRAM, up to 67 TOPS) |
| Battery | 48 V / 7 Ah quick-swap lithium-ion |
| Runtime | Up to 2 hours |
| Website | noetixrobotics.com |
The Noetix N2 is a compact bipedal humanoid robot developed by Noetix Robotics (Chinese: 松延动力), a Beijing-based robotics startup founded in September 2023. Designed for education, research, entertainment, and security patrol applications, the N2 stands 118 cm tall and weighs 30 kg. It is capable of running, jumping, dancing, and performing continuous backflips, making it one of the most agile small-format humanoid robots on the market.
The N2 gained international attention in April 2025 when it finished second in the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon in Beijing, completing the 21-kilometer course in 3 hours and 37 minutes. It subsequently appeared at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala in a comedy skit watched by hundreds of millions of viewers. Following these high-profile events, Noetix Robotics saw its valuation triple and secured nearly 1 billion yuan (~$146 million) in Series B funding led by Chendao Capital, an investment arm of battery giant CATL.
Noetix Robotics was founded in September 2023 by Jiang Zheyuan (蒋哲远), who was 25 years old at the time. Jiang grew up on the campus of Tsinghua University in Beijing and was admitted to the university's Department of Electronic Engineering with the 28th-highest score on the Beijing college entrance examination.[1] During his doctoral studies at Tsinghua, Jiang focused on reinforcement learning research. In late 2021, he encountered a robotic dog in his lab that profoundly altered the direction of his career. Deeply inspired by the potential of embodied AI, he chose to abandon his PhD during his third year of doctoral study and founded Noetix Robotics to pursue the commercialization of humanoid robots.[2]
The company's Chinese legal name is Songyan Power (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. (松延动力（北京）科技有限公司). Its core founding team draws from Tsinghua University, Zhejiang University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the University of Southern California.[3]
The early months of Noetix Robotics were marked by significant fundraising difficulties. With a grassroots team and products still in the prototype phase, Jiang struggled to attract investors through late 2023. A working prototype eventually secured seed funding and allowed the team to begin product development in earnest.[2]
By early 2024, the company had approximately 30 million yuan in cash but lacked financial discipline. Inexperienced spending nearly depleted resources until March 2024, when a demonstration of the company's bionic facial robot technology impressed investors and secured additional funding to stabilize operations.[2] The company introduced its first small humanoid robot, the N1, at the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) in Shanghai in July 2024.[4]
As of 2026, Noetix Robotics has grown to approximately 100 employees, most of whom are from the post-1995 and post-2000 generations. The company has completed nine rounds of financing since its founding.[5]
Noetix Robotics has raised substantial capital through multiple funding rounds.
| Round | Approximate date | Amount | Lead investor(s) | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Seed | Late 2023 | Undisclosed | Undisclosed | First prototype secured investment |
| Pre-B | October 2025 | Vertex Ventures | Coincided with Bumi consumer launch | |
| Series B | February/March 2026 | Chendao Capital (CATL) | With Guoke Investment, Beijing Guosheng Fund, United Ventures |
The Series B round, closed shortly after the company's appearance at the 2026 Spring Festival Gala, was the ninth financing round overall. It was led by Chendao Capital, the industrial investment platform of Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd. (CATL), with participation from CAS Investment Management, Guoke Investment, Beijing Guosheng Fund, and United Ventures.[6][7] After the half-marathon success in mid-2025, the company reached a valuation of approximately $200 million, which subsequently grew further following the Gala appearance.[8]
The N1 was Noetix Robotics' first small humanoid robot, debuted at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC 2024) in Shanghai in July 2024. It served as a proof-of-concept platform that demonstrated the company's capabilities in bipedal locomotion and lightweight humanoid design. Limited public information is available about the N1's specifications, but it established the design lineage that the N2 would build upon.[4]
The N2 was unveiled in early 2025 as a significantly upgraded successor to the N1. According to Noetix, the entire development process from project initiation to achieving continuous backflips took approximately six months.[9] The hardware team developed a robust platform capable of withstanding high-dynamic movements, while the algorithm team employed a combination of trajectory optimization (TO) and reinforcement learning (RL) to train the robot to perform complex athletic maneuvers.[9]
The N2 was designed to occupy a gap in the market between expensive full-size humanoids and smaller toy-grade robots. At a launch price of 39,900 yuan (approximately $5,500), it is positioned as more affordable than competing short humanoid robots such as the Unitree G1 ($16,000) and the PM01 ($13,700).[9]
The N2 stands 118 cm (3 ft 10 in) tall and weighs 30 kg (66 lb), placing it in the compact humanoid category. Its design concentrates heavier joints closer to the torso to reduce limb inertia, allowing faster and more agile movements. The robot has a maximum payload capacity of 5 kg.[10]
| Specification | Value |
|---|---|
| Height | 118 cm (3 ft 10 in) |
| Weight | 30 kg (66 lb) |
| Total degrees of freedom | 18 |
| DOF per leg | 5 |
| DOF per arm | 4 |
| Peak joint torque | 150 Nm |
| Top running speed | 3.5 m/s (12.6 km/h) |
| Payload capacity | 5 kg |
| Battery | 48 V / 7 Ah lithium-ion (quick-swap) |
| Runtime | Up to 2 hours |
| Edge AI compute | Up to 67 TOPS |
| Processor | NVIDIA Jetson Orin (8 GB VRAM) |
| Operating system | Linux-based |
| Connectivity | Wi-Fi (2.4/5 GHz), Bluetooth 5.0, USB-C, Ethernet |
| Color options | Flowing Purple, Moonlight White |
The N2 features 18 degrees of freedom, with five powered joints per leg and four per arm. This joint configuration enables a wide range of dynamic movements including bipedal walking, running at speeds up to 3.5 m/s (12.6 km/h), single-leg and double-leg jumping, large strides, dancing, and continuous backflips.[9][10]
The robot's locomotion system relies on deep reinforcement learning for anthropomorphic walking. Its control architecture combines trajectory optimization to plan motions with reinforcement learning policies to execute them robustly in real time. This hybrid approach allows the N2 to maintain stability across varied terrain conditions and recover from perturbations during high-dynamic maneuvers such as somersaults.[9]
At peak performance, the N2's 150 Nm joint torque output enables it to generate the explosive force required for backflips and other acrobatic feats. The robot has been demonstrated performing continuous backflips in succession, a capability that is rare among humanoid robots of its size class. Prior to the N2, continuous backflips by a humanoid robot had been achieved most notably by Boston Dynamics' Atlas, a far larger and more expensive research platform.[9]
The N2 is equipped with three depth cameras for 3D environmental awareness: two downward-slanting units and one forward-facing unit. These structured-light depth sensors enable the robot to perceive its surroundings, track objects, and make autonomous navigation decisions. The sensor suite also includes four microphones and one speaker for audio interaction.[11]
All perception processing runs locally on the onboard NVIDIA Jetson Orin GPU, which provides up to 67 TOPS (tera operations per second) of edge AI compute with 8 GB of video memory. This allows the N2 to perform object detection, motion tracking, and decision-making without relying on cloud connectivity.[10][11]
The N2 supports speech and visual interaction via large language models. Its control platform provides both high-level and low-level motion control APIs, and the system is compatible with Python, C++, ROS, and Linux development environments. The platform uses a closed architecture but offers programmatic access for researchers and developers who wish to customize locomotion behaviors, perception pipelines, or interaction logic.[10]
On April 19, 2025, the N2 competed in the world's first humanoid robot half-marathon, held in the Yizhuang district on the outskirts of Beijing. Twenty bipedal robots from various Chinese robotics companies lined up at the starting line to attempt the 21.1-kilometer course.[12]
Noetix Robotics entered two N2 units in the competition. The "Xiao Wantong" team unit finished in second place with a time of 3 hours and 37 minutes, while the "Whirlwind Kid" team unit finished in third place.[13] Only six of the 21 participating robots completed the full course.
The race was won by Tien Kung Ultra, a full-size humanoid developed by the National and Local Co-built Embodied AI Robotics Innovation Center (X-Humanoid). Tien Kung Ultra stands 1.8 meters tall and weighs 52 kilograms, giving it a significant stride-length advantage over the smaller N2. A robot designed by Shanghai-based firm DroidUp finished in third behind the two Noetix entries.[12]
| Placement | Robot | Manufacturer | Height | Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Tien Kung Ultra | X-Humanoid | 180 cm | ~2 hours 40 minutes |
| 2nd | N2 (Xiao Wantong) | Noetix Robotics | 118 cm | 3 hours 37 minutes |
| 3rd | N2 (Whirlwind Kid) | Noetix Robotics | 118 cm | Not disclosed |
Notably, the Xiao Wantong unit was reported to be the only robot in the entire competition that did not require human traction, completing the race fully autonomously. It recovered from a sixth-place starting position through successive overtakes, demonstrating advanced environmental perception and gait-adjustment algorithms that allowed it to "adjust its gait like a human." The Whirlwind Kid unit fell during the race but recovered and continued running to finish in third place.[13]
Other notable competitors in the event included Unitree Robotics' G1 and Leju Robotics' Kuavo. Multiple robots required battery swaps and mid-race repairs, with engineers performing hard resets on some units during the course. The event highlighted both the impressive progress and the remaining limitations of bipedal humanoid robot endurance.[12]
The half-marathon performance generated enormous publicity for Noetix Robotics. The N2 received over 2,500 pre-orders following the event, and the company's valuation tripled to approximately $200 million.[8] Bloomberg reported that Noetix founder Jiang Zheyuan saw the event as validation of the N2's endurance capabilities and commercial viability.[14]
The CCTV Spring Festival Gala (Chunwan) is the most-watched television broadcast in the world, with an audience typically exceeding 700 million viewers. In 2026, for the Year of the Fire Horse, Noetix Robotics was selected as the official humanoid robot partner of the Gala, marking one of the highest-profile public appearances for any robotics company globally.[15]
Noetix's robots featured prominently in the comedy sketch "Grandma's Favorite" (奶奶最爱), starring veteran actress Cai Ming. The skit paid homage to a comedy performance from 30 years earlier in which Cai Ming had played a whimsical, clumsy robot. In the 2026 version, she performed alongside real humanoid robots.[16]
A total of five Noetix robots appeared on stage, including units from the Bumi, N2, and E1 product lines, along with a custom-built bionic humanoid. The robots performed a variety of acts integrated into the plot: magic tricks, storytelling, synchronized running, and backflips. The N2 units executed side flips and backflips within a stage area of just 12 square meters, showcasing the precision of the motion planning and landing control systems in confined spaces.[16][17]
One of the most striking elements of the performance was a custom bionic humanoid robot built to resemble Cai Ming herself. Noetix engineers constructed the replica in approximately 30 days. The process began with creating a detailed 3D facial model, capturing extensive biometric data about her micro-expressions, speech patterns, and facial tics. The bionic face contained 32 micro-motors paired with platinum silicone skin to achieve pixel-level replication of facial expressions, including 12 motors dedicated to the mouth alone.[16][17]
The robot used Noetix's proprietary Audio2Face algorithm and D2P (Data to Performance) expression-driving technology for real-time emotional interaction. On stage, the bionic Cai Ming acted coquettishly, told jokes, and displayed a range of human-like facial expressions that impressed both the studio audience and television viewers.[16]
Within the first two hours of the Gala broadcast, e-commerce searches for robots surged more than 300 percent, customer inquiries increased by 460 percent, and order volumes rose by 150 percent across the robotics industry.[17] For Noetix specifically, the exposure helped catalyze its nearly 1 billion yuan Series B funding round, which closed shortly after the broadcast.[6]
Four Chinese robotics companies appeared on stage during the 2026 Gala: Noetix Robotics, Unitree Robotics, Galbot, and MagicLab. The event has been compared to a "Super Bowl for humanoid robots," reflecting China's growing ambition to position itself as a global leader in humanoid robotics.[17]
The N2 is one of several robots in the Noetix Robotics portfolio. The company's product strategy spans compact bipedal humanoids, full-size humanoids, bionic service robots, and consumer-grade robots.
| Model | Type | Height | Weight | DOF | Key features | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N2 | Bipedal humanoid | 118 cm | 30 kg | 18 | Running, backflips, AI vision | 39,900 yuan (~$5,500) |
| Dora | Bipedal humanoid | 100 cm | 20 kg | 20-26 | Household, education, 120 Nm torque | Not disclosed |
| E1 | Bipedal humanoid | 136 cm | Not disclosed | 21+ | Embodied intelligence platform, modular | Not disclosed |
| Bumi | Bipedal humanoid | 94 cm | 12 kg | Not disclosed | Consumer-grade, open programming | 9,998 yuan (~$1,370) |
| Hobbs 3 | Bionic head | N/A | N/A | 32 (face) + 8 (passive) | Lifelike expressions, platinum silicone skin | Not disclosed |
| Hobbs W1 | Wheeled service robot | N/A | N/A | Dual 5-DOF arms, 6-DOF hands | Bionic head, autonomous navigation, dual GPUs | Not disclosed |
Dora is a 100 cm bipedal humanoid designed for household, research, and education applications. It weighs 20 kg and features 20 to 26 degrees of freedom with 120 Nm peak joint torque. Dora can walk stably over grass, snow, or stairs at 1 m/s (3.6 km/h) and is equipped with three depth cameras and a Jetson Orin edge AI brain with 40 TOPS of processing power. Noetix positions Dora for family chores, STEM education, and light elder-care support.[18]
The E1 (also called "Geek Pioneer") is Noetix's full-size humanoid platform, standing approximately 136 cm tall with a baseline of 21 degrees of freedom and modular expansion options. It combines a humanoid mechanical body with onboard sensing and compute for perception and interaction, with configurations using depth cameras, IMU, optional LiDAR, and compute tiers scaling up to a Jetson Orin Nano Super. The E1 is primarily aimed at education, research, and applied development.[19]
The Bumi (named after the Chinese word for bumblebee) was announced in October 2025 as the world's first high-performance bipedal humanoid robot priced below 10,000 yuan (~$1,370). Standing 94 cm tall and weighing approximately 12 kg, Bumi is targeted at consumers, families, and educational institutions. It features a 48 V battery providing 1 to 2 hours of runtime and supports drag-and-drop graphical programming for children alongside voice interaction for companion scenarios. Bumi's locomotion relies on proprietary algorithms combining imitation learning and reinforcement learning. The initial batch of 500 units sold out within 48 hours of launch on JD.com.[20][21]
The Hobbs 3 is Noetix's bionic robot head platform. It features 32 active degrees of freedom and 8 passive degrees of freedom in the face, enabling precise simulation of human emotions including anger, smiling, sadness, and agreement. The facial skin is made of specially formulated platinum silicone designed to replicate the texture, pattern, and elasticity of real human skin. Hobbs supports rapid switching and customization of hairstyles, facial features, and makeup for different application scenarios. In May 2025, Noetix unveiled Xiao Nuo, a female bionic persona built on the Hobbs platform, featuring ElevenLabs AI voice integration for natural human-like communication.[22][23]
The Hobbs W1 is a wheeled service robot that combines the Hobbs bionic head with a mobile wheeled base and an interactive chest screen. It features dual 5-DOF robotic arms and 6-DOF dexterous hands for light physical tasks such as handing objects, pressing buttons, and basic pick-and-place actions. The W1 uses onboard dual GPUs for AI processing and autonomous navigation for mapping and movement in complex indoor spaces. Unlike the bipedal N2, the Hobbs W1 is designed for stationary commercial environments such as reception desks, retail spaces, and corporate lobbies.[24]
The N2 operates in an increasingly competitive Chinese humanoid robot market. China's government has identified humanoid robotics as a strategic technology, and dozens of startups and established firms are racing to commercialize bipedal robots for industrial, commercial, and consumer applications.
Four Chinese robotics companies appeared together at the 2026 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, providing a snapshot of the industry's key players: Noetix Robotics, Unitree Robotics, Galbot, and MagicLab.[17]
Unitree Robotics is the market leader in quadruped and small humanoid robots, with industry-leading motion control algorithms for high-dynamic movement optimization. In 2025, Unitree's humanoid robot shipments increased significantly, and the company initiated IPO guidance. Unitree aims to ship 20,000 humanoid robots in 2026.[25]
MagicLab has achieved over 90 percent in-house development of key hardware components, including joint modules, dexterous hands, and reducers. Its humanoid robot adopts a dual-mode architecture that balances complex task planning with real-time motion control. In November 2025, MagicLab's Z1 humanoid demonstrated advanced athletic abilities, performing cartwheels and high kicks while also identifying and dodging incoming arrows.[17]
Galbot has pioneered a training pipeline that combines synthetic simulation data with smaller amounts of real-world data, enabling efficient robot learning with lower data-collection costs.[17]
The N2 competes primarily in the compact humanoid segment, which is distinct from full-size humanoids like Tesla Optimus or Figure 03.
| Robot | Manufacturer | Height | Weight | DOF | Top speed | Price | Country |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| N2 | Noetix Robotics | 118 cm | 30 kg | 18 | 12.6 km/h | ~$5,500 | China |
| G1 | Unitree Robotics | 127 cm | 35 kg | 23-43 | 7.2 km/h | ~$16,000 | China |
| Bumi | Noetix Robotics | 94 cm | 12 kg | N/A | N/A | ~$1,370 | China |
| GR-1 | Fourier Intelligence | 165 cm | 55 kg | 40 | 5 km/h | ~$90,000+ | China |
| H1 | Unitree Robotics | 180 cm | 47 kg | 19 | 13 km/h | ~$90,000 | China |
The N2 differentiates itself through its combination of high agility (continuous backflips, 12.6 km/h running speed), compact form factor, and relatively low price point. While the Unitree G1 offers more degrees of freedom and a taller frame, the N2 is priced at roughly one-third of the G1's cost and has demonstrated superior dynamic movement capabilities in public events such as the half-marathon. The N2's backflip capability, in particular, is a feature that most competing small humanoids cannot replicate.[9][10]
Noetix markets the N2 for several use cases: