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The World’s Most Bionic and Intelligent Panda Cub Robot Spotlight at CES 2025: To Deliver Psychological Support and Robot-Assisted Therapy

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LAS VEGAS, Jan. 7, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — Chinese Startup Unveils The Most Advanced Biomimetic Affective AI Pandas 

Imagine a world filled with panda cubs, where you can choose one as your own perfect pet. They tend to you anytime you want, and listen to you all the time. They not only understand what you are saying, but also response to you in a way based on the personality traits you want them to be. The more you hug, cuddle, or stroke them, the happier they become, growing more attached to you even during moments of loneliness or sadness. While owning a real panda cub may be out of reach, a Chinese company is making this dream a reality through advanced robotics.

At CES 2025, a Shenzhen-based company Mind with Heart Robotics Co., Ltd. (known as Wuxin) unveiled its latest product:

AnAn, an adorable bionic panda cub. AnAn reacts to a user’s touch with unique sounds based on where it’s petted, owing to its whole set of realistic and soft fur covering more than 10 tactile sensing suites. Designed with an intelligent “AI Brain”, AnAn is an ideal companion for users. This panda cub equips with core & long-term memory and reminder functions, making it a “personal assistant” for seniors. AnAn also comes with its dedicated app, allowing users to personalize their panda’s name, voice, and personality while sharing stories and experiences with a global community of “panda owners.”

Apart from its cute and attractive appearance, AnAn holds significant potential in healthcare, such as providing companionship for elderly patients with cognitive decline, helping reduce care costs, and improving their independence and quality of life. In addition, the AI panda serves as an engaging and educational companion, fostering emotional growth and improving social skills in children. It also provides stress relief for professionals and young individuals facing loneliness, offering the perfect solution for those who wish to own a pet but lack the time to care for one.

With its blend of advanced AI technology and heartwarming design, AnAn is set to redefine the future of companionship, offering users a unique and emotionally enriching experience.

The Business of Battling Loneliness: A Promising Market for AI-powered Plush Toys

As aging populations and mental health issues become more severe, the demand for loneliness reduction and psychological support has reached unprecedented levels. Groups such as the elderly living alone, single individuals, and socially anxious individuals, seek understanding and empathy. Special groups, such as patients with depression, cognitive disorders, or autism, also have strong needs for psychological support. “In China, over 100 million people fall into these demographics, and globally, the number shall be tragically multiplied by five,” said Dr. Zhang Jiaming, founder and CEO of Wuxin. “We firmly believe that biomimetic AI pets with affective intelligence become indispensable friends and personal assistants for mankind worldwide. And AnAn can be an ideal robot to deliver psychological support and robot-assisted therapy to global customers.”

Unlike human interactions, robots eliminate concerns about social stigma, embarrassment, or prejudice, providing stress-free conversations. They are also increasingly utilized in therapeutic contexts for psychological and cognitive challenges.

Many Chinese manufacturers have also launched AI-powered plush toys, with some companies reporting shipments of 20,000 to 30,000 units. These products primarily target young people and elderly people seeking to alleviate loneliness by owning an AI-powered pet.

According to market research firm Contrive Datum Insights, the global AI toys market is projected to reach $35.11 billion by 2030.

However, Dr. Zhang believes current products fall short of expectations. “Most AI pets on the market are overpriced, often exceeding $1,000, with limited realism and intelligence in interactions. Our products will deliver ‘Three Highs’, i.e., high cost-effectiveness, high bionic fidelity, and high affective intelligence, to attract and benefit more customers,” said Dr. Zhang. Wuxin has partnered with world-leading manufacturers, brand channels, and psychological and healthcare experts to overcome key challenges in bionic craftsmanship, cost, and production capacity, to set new industry standards.

Ambitious Plans for 2025 Mass Production

Industrial robots are no longer enough to satisfy the ambitions of Chinese companies. Robots with enhanced lifelike qualities, better communication, and interactive capabilities—especially those designed for home environments and elder care—are emerging as a new development trend. In the future, service and personal robots are expected to be widely adopted in areas such as customer service, hospitality, entertainment, healthcare, and elder care.

A complete supply chain system and supporting government incentive policies provide convenience for Chinese companies. Located in the innovation hub of China’s Greater Bay Area, Wuxin benefits from a robust industrial ecosystem in cities such as Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Dongguan, and Zhongshan. Government support is also abundant; for example, Shenzhen’s 2022 initiative to develop intelligent robotics clusters included subsidies of up to 3 million RMB (~$410,000).

Dr. Zhang, who earned his Ph.D.at the University of Sheffield under globally renowned AI & robotics experts Prof. Noel Sharkey and Dr. Amanda Sharkey, has over a decade of experience in robotics, AI, affective computing, and human-robot interaction. He has led or participated in the development of more than 20 different forms of interactive robots. From 2015 to 2019, he and his team developed the world’s first biomimetic panda robot. This robot was used in a preliminary study on the feasibility of a panda robot with 20 dementia patients at a day care center (JCCPA in Hong Kong), and it garnered significant media attention in Mainland China. Currently Wuxin has assembled a team of top-tier talent from universities such as the University of Nottingham, CUHK and Peking University, and has filed over 30 patents.

“Our philosophy is rooted in our belief in 3S- ‘Simulation-Stimulus-Social Creatures,’ meaning creating social beings through interactive stimuli based on bionics. As a result, all our products could be labeled as highly biomimetic and emotionally intelligent,” said Dr. Zhang. The Wuxin product line also includes other forms, and all products will be launched in 2025.

As technology advances and demand grows, Biomimetic AI Pets with Affective Intelligence are poised to become a ubiquitous part of daily life, transforming from cinematic fantasies into reality. Ambitious Chinese companies like Wuxin are making quiet yet significant strides toward this future.

About Wuxin

Mind with Heart Robotics Co., Ltd.

Address: 1601A, 8th Building, Qianhai Excellence Financial Center (Phase I), No. 5033 Menghai Avenue, Nanshan Street, Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Cooperation Zone, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China.

Media Contact

CEO Dr. Zhang: 0086-13530502919

Email: zhangjiaming@wxbionics.com 

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SOURCE Mind With Heart Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Chef Robotics Physical AI Models Can Now Automate Baked Goods Packing

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SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Chef Robotics, a leader in physical AI for the food industry, today announced that Chef robots can now automate tray assembly for baked goods packing. The application places baked products, such as burger buns, chocolate chip cookies, biscotti, butter cookies, biscuits, fortune cookies, granola bars, rusks, and shortbreads into trays and packaging containers before sealing.

Watch Chef robots in action.

Baked goods packing has historically been difficult to automate for high-mix production. Each item behaves differently on the production line—a granola bar compresses under the wrong grip, while a biscotti or rusk can crack if placed at the wrong angle. Surface textures range from glazed and smooth to crumbly and irregular, and strict presentation requirements leave little room for error. This variability has made it challenging for automation systems to reliably handle baked goods at production speeds, leaving food manufacturers dependent on manual labor and traditional bakery equipment.

To address this, Chef built its baked goods packing application on its existing piece-picking capability, which uses Chef’s AI-powered computer vision and physical AI models trained across diverse real-world production environments. This allows Chef robots to assess each item’s position, shape, and orientation in real time and determine how to pick the items from the pan and place them quickly and precisely without damaging them.

The baked goods packing application supports four distinct placement capabilities.

First, Chef’s vision system detects the angle at which each item sits in the pan and reorients it after picking, placing it on the tray at the exact angle required, regardless of its original position, enabling retail-ready presentation for SKUs that require precise angular placement.

Second, Chef robots can place multiple baked goods into the same packaging container in a single automated pass, completing full tray assembly without manual intervention.

Third, for packaging containers with multiple small compartments, Chef robots can precisely place items into each designated section, including multiple items in the same compartment, using Chef’s AI vision model to detect compartment positions and orientations in real time.

Fourth, Chef’s vision system identifies the exact center of each tray and places every item at a predefined offset from that center, ensuring a uniform, consistent arrangement across every pack regardless of how trays arrive on the conveyor.

For food manufacturers evaluating bakery systems and baked goods packaging automation, the application offers higher throughput, reduced labor dependency, and consistent presentation across shifts. The capability runs on Chef’s existing robotic hardware and software, allowing manufacturers to deploy it without requiring any changes to their production lines.

Chef’s baked goods packing application is available in the U.S., Canada, Germany, and the UK and is included as part of Chef’s robotics-as-a-service (RaaS) pricing model.

About Chef Robotics
Chef is the first company to have commercialized a scalable AI-driven food robotics solution. With over 104 million servings made in production, Chef leverages ChefOS, an AI platform for food manipulation, to offer a Robotics-as-a-Service solution that helps industry-leading food companies increase production volume and meet demand. Headquartered in San Francisco, CA, Chef aims to empower humans to do what humans do best by accelerating the advent of intelligent machines. Visit https://chefrobotics.ai to learn more.

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/chef-robotics-physical-ai-models-can-now-automate-baked-goods-packing-302756923.html

SOURCE Chef Robotics

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Air Products to Expand Industrial Gas Supply for Samsung Electronics’ Next-Generation Semiconductor Fab in South Korea

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New investment underscores the company’s long-term commitment to Korea and its leading role in the global semiconductor industry 

LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., April 29, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Air Products (NYSE:APD), a world-leading industrial gases company and serving Samsung globally, today announced it has been selected by Samsung to supply industrial gases for its new advanced semiconductor fab in Pyeongtaek, Gyeonggi Province, South Korea.

Under the agreement, Air Products will build, own and operate multiple state-of-the-art production facilities and a bulk specialty gas supply system to supply nitrogen, oxygen, argon, and hydrogen for Samsung’s new semiconductor fab. The new facilities are expected to come onstream in multiple phases from 2028 through 2030.

Air Products has a long track record of executing multiple phase expansions in Pyeongtaek to support Samsung’s growing manufacturing needs. This latest project represents Air Products’ largest investment to date in the semiconductor industry and will establish Pyeongtaek as the company’s single largest operations site globally supporting the electronics industry. 

“Air Products is honored to be selected once again by Samsung and to have their continued confidence as a trusted partner supporting their strategic growth plans,” said SR Kim, President, Air Products Korea. “This significant investment reinforces Air Products’ role as a leading global supplier to the semiconductor industry and underscores our long-standing commitment to supporting our strategic customers with safety, reliability, efficiency and excellent service.”

Air Products has served the global electronics industry for more than 40 years, supplying industrial gases safely and reliably to many of the world’s leading technology companies. The company has operated in Korea for more than 50 years and has established a strong position in electronics and manufacturing sectors.

About Air Products

Air Products (NYSE: APD) is a world-leading industrial gases company in operation for over 85 years focused on serving energy, environmental, and emerging markets and generating a cleaner future. The Company supplies essential industrial gases, related equipment and applications expertise to customers in dozens of industries, including refining, chemicals, metals, electronics, manufacturing, medical and food. As the leading global supplier of hydrogen, Air Products also develops, engineers, builds, owns and operates some of the world’s largest clean hydrogen projects, supporting the transition to low- and zero-carbon energy in the industrial and heavy-duty transportation sectors. Through its sale of equipment businesses, the Company also provides turbomachinery, membrane systems and cryogenic containers globally.

Air Products had fiscal 2025 sales of $12 billion from operations in approximately 50 countries. For more information, visit airproducts.com or follow us on LinkedInXFacebook or Instagram.

This release contains “forward-looking statements” within the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are based on management’s expectations and assumptions as of the date of this release and are not guarantees of future performance. While forward-looking statements are made in good faith and based on assumptions, expectations and projections that management believes are reasonable based on currently available information, actual performance and financial results may differ materially from projections and estimates expressed in the forward-looking statements because of many factors, including the risk factors described in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended September 30, 2025 and other factors disclosed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except as required by law, we disclaim any obligation or undertaking to update or revise any forward-looking statements contained herein to reflect any change in the assumptions, beliefs or expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances upon which any such forward-looking statements are based.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/air-products-to-expand-industrial-gas-supply-for-samsung-electronics-next-generation-semiconductor-fab-in-south-korea-302757497.html

SOURCE Air Products

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