Chery Recalls Malaysia OMODA 5 After Rear-Axle Break; DeepSeek Explores Embodied AI

Chery said its technical team found insufficient weld strength in the local welding position of the rear trailing arm in the affected batch. Under extreme conditions, the weld seam could tear, the company said, adding that the structural version has been discontinued. Vehicles covered by the recall will be sent to authorized Chery service outlets for a full inspection of rear-axle components, with free replacement of parts where necessary. The company also said it had started preventive risk checks on same-batch OMODA 5 vehicles in China and other overseas markets, was in contact with regulators in various locations, and would release information as the checks proceed. The OMODA 5 had a previous rear-axle fracture in Malaysia in 2024, when Chery recalled and inspected 600 vehicles.

Also on Oct. 12, media reports said a sedan ran off a mountainous national highway in Gulin County, Luzhou, Sichuan, and fell nearly 100 meters down a cliff. The driver survived with a thoracic vertebral fracture and was not in life-threatening condition; local traffic police were investigating. Lynk & Co said its rescue system received accident information and its Chengdu store contacted the owner immediately, while its regional team sent a vehicle more than 100 kilometers to the hospital and stayed with the owner until family arrived. Footage described in reports showed airbags had deployed and the battery did not smoke, catch fire, explode or leak electricity.

In robotics and artificial intelligence, Unitree founder Wang Xingxing said at a dialogue during the opening of the 26th China International Industry Fair that the release of GPT-6 had a major impact on the embodied-AI industry's understanding and that his team had deployed it on robots for task tests with fairly good results. He said the industry's critical point could arrive relatively quickly, possibly in one or two years, and that mass robot adoption still requires solving generalization and efficiency, though those problems would be addressed in coming years. "My personal belief in AI has only grown. The biggest mistake I made over the past decade was not believing in AI enough," Wang said, according to First Financial.

DeepSeek founder Liang Wenfeng has recently focused on embodied intelligence and exchanged views with several entrepreneurs in the field on robots, large models and interaction with the real world, according to an Oct. 12 report by Sina Technology. People familiar with the matter said Liang is considering whether DeepSeek should enter embodied AI, either by building a team himself or by investing in related companies. DeepSeek has previously invested in Unitree, and foreign media reported that it plans to lead an investment in Winverse AI, a robot company founded by former Tencent AI scientist Hu Han. DeepSeek did not respond as of publication.

Former UBTECH co-CTO Liao Hongtao has joined Tencent's Futian Laboratory as head of embodied intelligence, and his team has begun recruiting in the field, Blue Whale News reported. Futian Laboratory, formally the Embodied Intelligence Guangdong Provincial Laboratory, is a provincial AI laboratory in Shenzhen focused on embodied intelligence in human living environments and is jointly built by the International Digital Economy Academy and Tencent.

Aito plans to enter the European market in 2027 and has fully started WVTA European whole-vehicle type approval work, according to a report cited by Cailian Press. The brand will display SUVs including the AITO 6, AITO 7, AITO 8 and AITO 9 at the 2026 Paris Motor Show. Seres has said it is steadily advancing overseas sales of Aito models and building a global marketing and service network. Separately, media reported that Tencent Yuanbao is developing a Personal Agent product called Yuanbao Assistant and plans an independent app with runtime space and permissions separate from the main Yuanbao app to support long-cycle tasks and personal long-term memory. Tencent did not respond to a request for comment, and several other business units are also developing Personal Agent products or features, according to the report.

Chinese DRAM maker ChangXin Technology will continue using DUV lithography for its next-generation G6 memory platform, with the earliest launch expected in 2028, according to Kuai Technology. Forecasts show cell area will shrink about 30 percent from G5 to 0.000896 square microns. The company is expected to optimize 193-nanometer immersion DUV with self-aligned quadruple patterning and, at some layers, self-aligned double patterning. The G6 plan introduces bonding for the first time: its M0 layer is marked "193i LELE bonded," meaning ChangXin plans wafer-level hybrid bonding to separately manufacture and then stack and interconnect the DRAM array and peripheral logic. G6 may be the last generation using a 6F squared cell structure, while ChangXin has already laid out 3D DRAM with more than 64 layers, and its G7 products after 2030 may move to a 4F squared or 3D architecture.

Funding and product moves also continued. Mosi Intelligence announced more than 1 billion yuan in Pre-A funding led by Huakong Fund, with investors including CDB Sci-Tech Innovation, Shanghai Sci-Tech Fund, Xinwei Capital, Xuhui Capital, Zhuiguang Hard Tech Venture and Lingang Ceyuan Fund, while existing shareholders including Oriza Holdings, Shanghai Sci-Tech Group and Xinglian Capital continued to invest. The company will use the funds for omni-modal real-time interactive intelligence and global commercialization. AI infrastructure company Infinigence completed a 2.3 billion yuan C round, bringing cumulative funding to 4.3 billion yuan, a record for China's AI Infra sector, according to the report. Tencent's AI office workspace WorkBuddy added StepFun's latest flagship model Step 5 Preview, which will be free exclusively on WorkBuddy for two weeks. Skyworth is incubating an exoskeleton product for elderly walking assistance under Shenzhen Skyworth Digital Technology's innovation research institute; it will not use the Skyworth brand, is still in testing and has not been mass-produced, according to Leiphone.

Editor's Summary

Chery's recall in Malaysia and precautionary checks in China and other markets put renewed scrutiny on the OMODA 5's rear-axle safety after a second reported fracture. The same day brought new signals that China's embodied-AI race is widening, with DeepSeek's founder exploring the sector, Tencent hiring a former UBTECH executive, and Unitree's founder saying AI belief and deployment are accelerating. Aito's European certification, Tencent's Personal Agent effort, ChangXin's DUV-based G6 plan and new funding for AI and robotics companies show continued competition across autos, chips and AI infrastructure.