Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, XPeng and Baidu each list an AI model, a chip and a robot in a table of 11 Chinese tech firms published this week by Kyle Chan, who writes the newsletter High Capacity. By our count, that is 5 of the 11 firms in the table covering all three layers.
Chan’s argument, in their words: “These days, nearly every major Chinese tech firm has its own AI models, custom chips, and robots.” They add: “Instead of EV or robot companies, China now has all-in-one physical AI companies.”
Business Pill · Vertical Integration
An evergreen Business Engineer explainer on vertical integration. It teaches the general idea only and does not discuss the table or any company named here.
The key insight: In Kyle Chan’s table of 11 Chinese tech firms, five list an AI model, a chip and a robot: Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, XPeng and Baidu, by our count.
Chan’s table lists products by company in three columns: AI models, chips and robotics. Alibaba is listed with Qwen, Zhenwu and Tutu; Tencent with Hunyuan, Zixiao and Xiao Liu; Xiaomi with MiMo, XRING and CyberOne; XPeng with VLA, Turing and IRON; and Baidu with ERNIE, Kunlun and Xiaodu.
Six other firms fill two of the three columns. Huawei (Pangu, Ascend) and Li Auto (MACH Mind, M100) have no robot listed. BYD (Xuanji A3, Xiaodi) has no model listed. ByteDance (Seed, ByteMini), Meituan (LongCat, Xiaohuangfeng) and JD.com (JoyAI, Zhilang) have no chip listed.
Products by company in Kyle Chan’s table of 11 Chinese tech firms (High Capacity, November 2026). Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, XPeng and Baidu list an AI model, a chip and a robot. Teal dots are products also named in FourWeekMBA’s earlier reporting; ochre dots are listed by Chan only. The count of five is our arithmetic from Chan’s table.
What Was Posted on X
“These days, nearly every major Chinese tech firm has its own AI models, custom chips, and robots. Instead of EV or robot companies, China now has all-in-one physical AI companies.”
Kyle Chan, who writes the High Capacity newsletter, posted this on November 8, quoting their essay: nearly every major Chinese tech firm now has its own AI models, custom chips and robots. This piece takes its count of five firms from the table in that essay.
Why the Layers Converge, per Chan
Chan gives several reasons. The first is a shared physical AI stack: motors, sensors, batteries, power electronics, semiconductors and AI models used across EVs, robots, drones and data centres. Chan writes that at least 14 Chinese EV makers have begun making their own robots, including BYD, Chery, GAC, Xiaomi and XPeng.
The second is vertical integration. Chan quotes XPeng founder He Xiaopeng on why the carmaker designs its own chips: “A general-purpose chip might have 100 functions, but you only use 20 of them. The other 80 functions add both cost and power consumption.”
The third is models built for a firm’s own needs. Chan writes that Tencent first planned to build on other companies’ foundation models after DeepSeek R1 was released, then reversed course. They write that Xiaomi’s MiMo models are designed to work with Xiaomi’s smart devices and Meituan’s LongCat models with Meituan’s proprietary data.
The fourth is government support. Chan writes that the sectors firms are crowding into are the same ones in China’s latest Five-Year Plan: AI, semiconductors and robotics. They also cite a projection of 100,000 humanoid robots in China by the end of 2026.
The Export-Control Angle
Chan ties part of the shift to US restrictions. They write that Huawei, after being hit by US tech restrictions in 2019 and 2020, moved toward areas less dependent on advanced chipmaking, such as software, EVs and clean energy. They also write that Xiaomi’s chief executive Lei Jun has said fear of a US sanctions listing was a factor in Xiaomi’s move into EVs.
Our own reporting shows the chip side of that pressure. IDC estimates, as Reuters reported, put Nvidia at 34% of China’s AI chip shipments and Huawei at 28%. Separately, Reuters reported that about 600,000 Nvidia AI chips are stored in Hong Kong waiting for shipment to mainland China, with Beijing not yet approving large-scale imports of the H200 chips.
Chan notes that vertical integration is not unique to China: “Many American tech firms are making their own chips for similar reasons, including Google with its TPUs, Amazon with its Trainium chips, and OpenAI with its Jalapeño chip.”
Our Number
By our count from Chan’s table, 5 of the 11 firms list all three layers: Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, XPeng and Baidu. Ten of the 11 list an AI model, eight list a chip and nine list a robot. The count covers only the 11 firms Chan chose; it is not a census of Chinese tech companies.
As we read Chan’s table, chips are the thinnest column: 8 of the 11 firms list one, against 10 for models and 9 for robots, by our count.
As we read Chan’s essay, several of the five started elsewhere: Chan describes Xiaomi as a smartphone company, Baidu’s online advertising and search business and Alibaba’s e-commerce business.
As we read our own earlier reporting, the chip column carries the export-control pressure: IDC put Huawei at 28% of China’s AI chip shipments against Nvidia’s 34%, as Reuters reported.
Kyle Chan, High Capacity
“These days, nearly every major Chinese tech firm has its own AI models, custom chips, and robots.”
Three Implications
FOR THE STACK Chan’s table puts the same firm at the model, chip and robot layers; by our count five of the 11 firms are listed at all three.
FOR EXPORT CONTROLS Chan writes that Huawei moved toward areas less dependent on advanced chipmaking after US restrictions in 2019 and 2020.
FOR US COMPARISONS Chan notes that Google, Amazon and OpenAI also make their own chips, so vertical integration is not unique to China.
The analysis says: “Read a column to see one company’s full vertical posture.”
As we read it, Chan’s table is that kind of column view: one row per firm, across models, chips and robots. The analysis does not discuss Chan’s table or these Chinese firms.
What Is Not Established
The table is Chan’s selection of firms and products, and the reasons above are their analysis, not company statements. We did not check the robot products or the chips we have not reported on. A product listed in the table tells you a firm has one, not how many it ships or sells. The 14 EV makers and the 100,000 humanoid projection are figures in Chan’s essay; we have not checked them.
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In Kyle Chan’s table of 11 Chinese tech firms, five list an AI model, a chip and a robot: Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi, XPeng and Baidu. Chan describes China’s tech firms more broadly as “all-in-one physical AI companies.”
A note on sourcing. The table, the product names and the reasons for convergence are from Kyle Chan’s High Capacity essay, read on November 8, 2026. The count of five firms is our arithmetic from Chan’s table. Cross-references to chip shares and model releases are from FourWeekMBA’s earlier reporting. This piece is not investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
