Geek+ (02590) signed Zhao Hao, one of the "Tsinghua Embodied Five Heroes," as Chief Scientist, aiming to dominate the embodied intelligence technology frontier

The Geek+ app has learned that leading global intelligent robotics company Geek+ (02590) officially announced today the appointment of Dr. Hao Zhao, Assistant Professor, PhD supervisor, and BAAI Scholar at the Tsinghua University Institute for Intelligent Industry (AIR), as Chief Scientist of its embodied intelligence subsidiary.

This move aims to introduce top academic minds to tackle the application challenges of physical AI in unstructured environments, build core technological leadership, and is a clear signal of Geek+’s continued investment in embodied intelligence R&D.

Listed among the “Tsinghua Embodied Five Heroes,” a scene understanding pioneer

In China’s current academic landscape of embodied intelligence, Tsinghua University is undoubtedly a core hub. Hao Zhao, along with scholars Gao Yang, Xu Huazhe, Chen Jianyu, and Zhao Xing from the Institute for Interdisciplinary Information Sciences (Yao Class), are collectively known as the “Tsinghua Embodied Five Heroes” in the industry.

Unlike the “Yao Class Four Heroes,” who have backgrounds from prestigious overseas universities, Hao Zhao is a native leader firmly rooted in Tsinghua. He completed his bachelor’s and PhD studies in the Department of Electronic Engineering at Tsinghua, worked as a researcher at Intel China Research, completed postdoctoral research at Peking University, and ultimately taught at AIR. This unique growth path gives him both deep academic foundation and sharp industry insight.

He is not only acclaimed as a “Scene Understanding Pioneer,” focusing on geometric and cognitive scene understanding to endow robots with the core ability to interpret the world, but also one of the founders and leaders of Tsinghua’s largest robotics community, Sky Factory. Using this as an incubator, he has cultivated more than ten tech startups, creating an ecosystem loop of “research-education-industry.”

In technological breakthroughs, Hao Zhao’s research has filled critical gaps in “perception foundation” within embodied intelligence, refining the core interaction between intelligent agents and the physical world. Hao Zhao has published nearly 30 papers at top conferences such as CVPR and NeurIPS, and has won multiple international academic competition championships. In 2025, his team proposed the OnePoseViaGen method, which achieves high-precision 6D pose estimation of unfamiliar objects from a single RGBD image without pre-set 3D models, setting new field records. The related paper was selected for CoRL 2025 Oral. Additionally, he led the development of the DISCOVERSE embodied simulation platform, supporting multi-scale scene robot task simulation, forming an ecosystem loop of “research-education” together with the RDK UniBots science and education platform.

In December 2025, he appeared as the chair of the organizing committee at the GAIR Global AI and Robotics Conference and hosted the World Model sub-forum, marking his authoritative position in the field of embodied intelligence cognitive modeling.

Three-dimensional technological leap to bridge virtual and real worlds

After taking on his new role, Hao Zhao will directly inject cutting-edge results such as Sim-to-Real, zero-shot generalization, and world models into industrial scenarios, focusing on three key areas to help Geek+ achieve technological breakthroughs:

1. Reconstruct the “full-scene perception brain” for robots, utilizing advanced 3D vision technology to solve the challenge of precise recognition in complex working conditions, enabling robots to better adapt to environments.

2. Promote the implementation of “generative simulation” and world models, leveraging neural rendering and generative AI technologies to build high-fidelity virtual scenes, increasing the iteration speed of embodied intelligence models by a hundredfold.

3. Build a high-speed transformation bridge between “research and industry”: continuing the incubation experience from Sky Factory, transforming the most advanced algorithms into practical embodied intelligence solutions, unlocking commercial potential.

In this regard, Geek+ founder and CEO Zheng Yong outlined the company’s strategic vision: “As our ‘Universal Warehouse Robots’ strategy accelerates and embodied products are deployed, we need cutting-edge technology to support large-scale global deployment and the rapid construction of an embodied intelligence ecosystem.

In this uncharted territory of the global industry, there are no precedents. Dr. Hao Zhao, as a flagship figure in Tsinghua’s embodied intelligence field, will greatly enhance Geek+’s technological foresight in perception and generalization. Coupled with our strong foundation in commercialization, we are confident in transforming cutting-edge laboratory results into enormous commercial value, making embodied intelligence a fundamental force to stimulate new productivity and reshape the real economy.”

Dual-driven approach of technology and business to build a new high ground in embodied intelligence

Geek+’s ability to attract top scholars stems from its robust technological and commercial ecosystem. Thanks to its extensive global warehouse client base and channel network, Geek+ has rapidly broken through in the embodied intelligence field: by October 2025, its unmanned picking station had passed POC verification with a major international client, confirming both technical and commercial viability. The recently launched Gino 1, the world’s first humanoid general-purpose warehouse robot, relies on Geek+ Brain’s embodied intelligence foundation model, capable of multi-task coverage within warehouses and already capable of mass production.

Currently, Geek+ is the only company in the industry with full-stack products and technical capabilities in mobile robots, dedicated picking arms, and general humanoid robots for warehouse scenarios, providing end-to-end unmanned warehouse integrated solutions. This partnership with Hao Zhao will help Geek+ seize the next-generation technological commanding heights and inject strong momentum into high-quality enterprise and industry development.