AgiBot CEO Deng Taihua, the Low-Key Boss Behind Zhi Hui Jun, Makes Time's AI 100 List

Deng, who co-founded AgiBot with tech celebrity Peng Zhihui (also known as "Zhi Hui Jun"), has largely stayed out of the spotlight during the company's early years. Time listed him among "Innovators" and noted that while China's humanoid robot hype centers on Unitree, AgiBot shipped 5,100 units last year, with both companies competing for global leadership.

According to a report by QbitAI, Deng was born in 1977. He studied computer communication at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China before joining Huawei, where he spent more than 20 years. He led Huawei's wireless network division, and later the computing product line, overseeing the development of the Kunpeng and Ascend ecosystems. He became a senior vice president around 2019 and remained with Huawei until at least late 2022.

A source close to AgiBot told QbitAI that Deng, along with Peng and a team of fewer than 10 people, had already decided to start a robotics venture before the company was formally registered in February 2023. Later reports by Securities Times said Deng invited Peng to co-found the company.

AgiBot quickly attracted investor interest. Within a month of establishment, it raised angel funding from Hillhouse Capital and MiraclePlus. Its valuation exceeded $1 billion within six months, and by end-2023 it had raised 600 million yuan in an A+++ round. In March 2025, Deng became the company's legal representative and appeared publicly as chairman and CEO. That month, AgiBot announced a Series B led by Tencent with a post-money valuation of 15 billion yuan. The China Business Journal quoted an insider saying Deng had always been the founder and CEO, but had chosen to keep a low profile.

In August 2025, Deng delivered his first public speech since founding the company at AgiBot's first partner conference. Media were not allowed into the venue; they watched a low-resolution livestream from another hall, which was cut off after the first part because the remaining 29 minutes were closed-door. At the second partner conference in April 2026, Deng spoke for nearly two hours, disclosing that AgiBot's 2025 revenue exceeded 1 billion yuan, an annual growth of about 20 times. He announced the "358" revenue targets: 1 billion yuan by 2025 (achieved), 10 billion yuan by 2027, and 100 billion yuan by 2030.

AgiBot has also pursued public capital markets. In July 2025, it took control of A-share listed company Shangwei New Materials through a two-step process, a move AgiBot denied was a backdoor listing, calling it "innovation need." By October, AgiBot held 63.62% of the company. In late July 2026, AgiBot confirmed it had started the process for a Hong Kong IPO. After the April conference, Deng disappeared from public view again.

Despite his self-effacing style, Deng is not shy in front of audiences. While at Huawei, he frequently spoke at industry events and delivered keynotes at Huawei Connect for three consecutive years. After taking charge of the computing product line, he advocated for the Kunpeng and Ascend ecosystems. After starting AgiBot, he let Peng take the spotlight until the company reached a certain scale.

In his TIME profile, Deng said: "We want to use robots to solve real-world work problems and promote practical applications in a pragmatic way." QbitAI commented that Deng's inclusion reflects AgiBot's strength in hardware supply chain, mass production, and commercial certainty, making it impossible for him to remain invisible.

He is one of several Chinese-origin figures on the list, including Huawei's He Tingbo, Alibaba's Eddie Wu, ByteDance's Liang Rubo, SMIC's Liang Mong Song, OpenAI's Mark Chen, Broadcom's Hock Tan, Zhipu AI's Zhang Peng, Moonshot AI's Yang Zhilin, Manus founder Xiao Hong, BYD's Stella Li, Stanford's Fei-Fei Li, Shanghai AI Lab's Zhou Bowen, Sequoia's Alfred Lin, and Conviction's Sarah Guo.