Peng Zhihui

Peng Zhihui (彭志辉, pinyin: Péng Zhìhuī), known on Bilibili as Zhihui Jun (稚晖君), is a Chinese hardware engineer, co-founder and chief technology officer of Agibot (Shanghai Zhiyuan New Creation Technology Co. Ltd., 上海智元新创科技), and a former member of Huawei's "Genius Youth" recruitment program. He co-founded Agibot in February 2023 with Deng Taihua, a former Huawei colleague, and serves as chief technology officer through the company's expansion into one of the most-valued private humanoid-robotics companies in China. As of May 2026, Peng continues to lead Agibot's engineering organisation, with the company having produced its 10,000th humanoid robot in March 2026 and having captured a reported dominant share of the global humanoid market.

At a glance

• Education: Bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering, University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC); Master's degree in information and communication engineering, UESTC (2018).
• Current role: Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Agibot since February 2023.
• Notable prior affiliations: Algorithm engineer at Oppo Research Institute AI Laboratory (2018 to 2020); AI algorithm engineer at Huawei Computing Product Line under the Genius Youth (天才少年) program (2020 to December 2022).
• Key contributions: Bilibili technology channel "Zhihui Jun" with several million followers, featuring the Dummy Iron Man-inspired robotic arm (2021), a self-driving bicycle, and various hardware-engineering projects; co-founder of Agibot; led engineering for the Yuanzheng A1 (August 2023), Yuanzheng A2, Lingxi X1, X2, Genie G1, and related platforms; co-led release of the AgiBot World dataset, one of the largest publicly released humanoid-manipulation datasets.
• Recognition: Recipient of the 2026 China Youth May Fourth Medal; profiled by Xinhua and People's Daily as a representative figure of the Chinese robotics-and-AI generation; attended an April 2025 meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang as one of the young technology entrepreneurs invited.
• Bilibili: @稚晖君 (Zhihui Jun, several million followers).
• GitHub: peng-zhihui.

Origins

Peng was born in 1993 in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, in southern China. He developed an early interest in electronics in primary and secondary school, building small projects from scavenged components. He enrolled at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China (UESTC) in Chengdu, completing a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering. He continued at UESTC for a master's degree in information and communication engineering, finishing in 2018, during which time he developed a bipedal robot capable of obstacle-avoidance and autonomous navigation that won an innovation award at the 2018 World Robot Olympiad.

In 2015, during his undergraduate years, Peng and a classmate launched a small 3D-printing company that secured an early investment of approximately five million yuan. He left the venture after graduating from his bachelor's program and turned to engineering employment.

The Bilibili content channel "Zhihui Jun" (稚晖君, literally "young child gentleman," an internet handle) was the public-recognition vehicle that preceded his entry into the elite-engineering recruitment pipeline. He uploaded 11 videos to Bilibili in 2017 featuring various hardware-engineering projects: self-balancing robots, bipedal robots, and ping-pong-playing robots. The channel's growth accelerated through 2018 to 2021 with projects including a miniature television, a self-driving bicycle, a homemade gantry plotter, and the Dummy Iron Man-inspired robotic arm capable of threading a needle and stitching grape skins. A 16-minute Dummy demonstration video in 2021 drew 2.5 million views and 10,000 comments within 24 hours. The followers' nickname for him was "Wild Iron Man" (野生钢铁侠).

Career

Peng joined Oppo Research Institute's AI Laboratory as an algorithm engineer in 2018, working on AI edge inference and related computing problems. He spent approximately two years at Oppo before moving to Huawei in 2020.

The Huawei tenure was through the Genius Youth (天才少年) recruitment program, a Ren Zhengfei initiative launched in 2019 to recruit the most-exceptional engineering graduates in China directly into Huawei's research and engineering organisations on maximum-tier compensation packages. Peng was admitted to the program on the highest compensation tier, with a reported annual salary of approximately 2 million yuan. He was assigned to Huawei's Computing Product Line, working on the Ascend (Shengteng, 昇腾) AI data-processing system and on AI edge heterogeneous computing problems. He continued to publish hardware projects on the Zhihui Jun Bilibili channel during the Huawei period.

He announced his departure from Huawei on Bilibili in December 2022, citing a desire to pursue robotics. Agibot was founded in February 2023 in Shanghai, with co-founder Deng Taihua (a former Huawei vice president) and a small founding team of former Huawei colleagues. Peng was named chief technology officer; Deng was named chief executive officer. The company was incorporated as Shanghai Zhiyuan New Creation Technology Co. Ltd. and operates the consumer brand 智元机器人 (Zhiyuan Jiqiren, "Zhiyuan Robotics").

The Yuanzheng A1 humanoid robot was unveiled in August 2023, approximately six months after Agibot's founding, at a Shanghai launch event that Peng personally presented. The development timeline was unusually compressed for a humanoid-robotics company; Western competitors typically take 18 to 36 months from founding to first public demonstration. The launch drew significant Chinese and international technology-media coverage, helped by Peng's existing Bilibili audience.

Subsequent product launches included the Yuanzheng A2 production humanoid (2024), the Lingxi X1 and X2 smaller-form-factor platforms (2024 to 2025), the Lingxi D-series industrial dual-arm manipulator, and the Genie G1 mass-production humanoid (2024 to 2025). Agibot announced in late 2024 that it had manufactured 962 robots by December 15, 2024, and in January 2025 produced its 1,000th unit. By March 2026, Peng announced that Agibot's 10,000th humanoid robot had rolled off the assembly line. In November 2025, the Agibot A2 set a Guinness World Record by walking 106.286 km from Suzhou to Shanghai. The AgiBot World dataset, released open-source in late 2024 to early 2025, established Agibot's position as the Chinese counterpart to Physical Intelligence and Skild AI on the robotics-foundation-model data axis.

Peng attended an April 2025 meeting with Chinese Premier Li Qiang as one of the young technology entrepreneurs invited, and was awarded the 2026 China Youth May Fourth Medal. Industry coverage in 2025 and 2026 has consistently identified him alongside Wang Xingxing of Unitree as the public-facing founders of the new Chinese humanoid-robotics generation.

Affiliations

• University of Electronic Science and Technology of China: Bachelor's student in biomedical engineering; Master's student in information and communication engineering, graduating 2018.
• Oppo Research Institute AI Laboratory: Algorithm engineer, 2018 to 2020.
• Huawei: AI algorithm engineer under the Genius Youth program, 2020 to December 2022.
• Agibot: Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, February 2023 to present.

Notable contributions

• Zhihui Jun Bilibili channel (2017 to present). Several million followers; flagship projects include the Dummy Iron Man-inspired robotic arm (2021, 2.5 million views in 24 hours), a self-driving bicycle, a miniature television, and various hardware-engineering builds. The channel's audience translated directly into recruiting pipeline and consumer brand recognition for Agibot at founding.
• Co-founding Agibot (February 2023). Co-founded Shanghai Zhiyuan New Creation Technology Co. Ltd. with Deng Taihua; serves as chief technology officer.
• Yuanzheng A1 humanoid robot launch (August 2023). Led the engineering development and public unveiling of Agibot's first humanoid platform at a Shanghai launch event approximately six months after the company's founding.
• Yuanzheng A2, Lingxi X1, X2, Genie G1 platforms (2024 to 2025). Led the engineering organisation through the production humanoid (A2), smaller-form-factor research SKUs (X1, X2), industrial dual-arm manipulator (D-series), and mass-production humanoid (G1) product-line expansion.
• AgiBot World dataset (late 2024 to early 2025). Co-led release of one of the largest publicly released humanoid-manipulation datasets, establishing Agibot's foundation-model-and-data positioning in the Chinese humanoid cluster.
• Guinness World Record walk (November 2025). Yuanzheng A2 walked 106.286 km from Suzhou to Shanghai, the longest continuous walk by a humanoid robot.
• 10,000th humanoid production milestone (March 2026). Announced the company's 10,000th humanoid robot, a production-scale milestone unmatched by any other humanoid-robotics company globally.

Open questions

• Foundation-model capability disclosure. Agibot has emphasised the AI-foundation-model side of humanoid robotics in its public positioning, but specific capability claims and external benchmarking have been limited. Detailed external benchmarks, additional dataset disclosures beyond AgiBot World, and third-party capability comparisons against the US robotics-foundation-model labs will shape Peng's competitive standing.
• Founder-CTO role evolution at scale. Peng holds the chief technology officer role under a co-founder chief executive (Deng Taihua) at a company that has grown past 1,000 employees and multiple product lines. Whether Peng's role evolves toward broader technical leadership across an expanding organisation, toward more narrow direction of a specific research function, or toward founder-of-future-spinout positioning will be informative for the company's long-term governance.
• IPO timing and venue. Industry reports through 2025 and early 2026 have consistently placed Agibot on track for a Chinese-exchange listing in 2026 or 2027, with Hong Kong the most-frequently-cited venue. Filing timing and venue will be informative for the company's strategic direction.
• Bilibili-channel-and-public-profile continuity. Peng has maintained the Zhihui Jun Bilibili channel through the founding and growth of Agibot. Whether the personal-content and public-profile activity continues at the same cadence, or recedes as Agibot's scale grows, will affect the company's recruiting-and-brand-recognition position.

Sources

• AgiBot on Wikipedia. Corporate history including founding date, co-founders, products, and milestones.
• Peng Zhihui (彭志辉) on The Wire China. Biographical entry covering UESTC education, the Oppo and Huawei tenures, and the founding of Agibot.
• Meet Peng Zhihui, the 32-year-old mind behind Agibot. VnExpress International biographical profile.
• From Huawei 'Genius' to Robotics Entrepreneur: The Rise of Peng Zhihui and AgiBot. Humanoids Daily profile covering the Genius Youth recruitment and the Agibot founding.
• Profile: A Chinese prodigy on a mission to bring robots to life. Xinhua profile covering the 2026 China Youth May Fourth Medal award.
• Former Huawei 'Genius Youth' recruit launches humanoid robots to rival Tesla's Optimus. South China Morning Post profile.
• Peng Zhihui's Bilibili channel. The Zhihui Jun content channel that established his public profile.
• Companion profile: Agibot for the corporate context, product line, and competitive positioning.