(Yicai) Sept. 16 -- Chinese robotics startup Unitree Robotics, best known for its humanoid robots that performed at the CMG New Year’s Gala, has open-sourced its world model-action architecture to foster a broader developer ecosystem.

The Hangzhou-based company yesterday released the source code for the UnifoLM-WMA-0, part of its Uniform Large Models series designed to unify applications across different robotic tasks and environments.

The G1 humanoid robot, a 1.3-meter-tall model launched a year ago, integrates the UnifoLM-WMA-0, combining vision, language, and action capabilities.

Unitree said the initiative centers on a “world model capable of understanding the physical laws of robot-environment interaction.” The system features a simulation engine and a policy enhancement head, enabling robots to predict and adapt to future environmental states. Demonstrations show the model generating video predictions of movements, which are then translated into robotic limb actions.

Che Haoxuan, founder of the Pioneer Technology Lab at Dalian Maritime University, told Yicai that the UnifoLM-WMA-0 represents an upgrade to a previous open-source model. Unitree has previously released several open-source tools.

The new framework enables robots to anticipate environmental changes within milliseconds, he said. “For example, while moving, if the system perceives a pothole on the ground ahead, it can proactively adjust its step height to avoid a misstep or loss of balance.”

An executive responsible for fundraising at another robotics firm noted that with most of Unitree’s revenue coming from education, open-sourcing is key to ecosystem growth. “Looking at its current revenue structure, cultivating a strong developer ecosystem is fundamental to Unitree’s core business,” the person said.

Last year, around four-fifths of Unitree’s quadruped robots, as well as a similar proportion of its humanoid models, were deployed in research, education, and consumer markets, according to company data.

“Everyone is competing for a dominant position in the next phase through a multi-pronged approach of open-sourcing, ecosystem building, and capital operations,” the fundraising executive added.

Editor: Emmi Laine