Xiao Liu

Xiao Liu is a research demonstrator from Tencent Robotics X, the Shenzhen lab founded in 2018, and made its first public appearance on 17 July 2026 at the WAIC conference in Shanghai. The name, roughly Little Six, points to its predecessor The Five (Xiao Wu) from September 2024, a wheel-legged robot with tactile skin and a multi-finger hand.

According to press reports the new model gives massages using force and tactile sensing, and its joints are driven by cable transmission. Tencent frames the work around elderly care and household help, yet it has announced neither a commercialisation plan nor a specification: height, weight, degrees of freedom, sensors, computer and runtime remain undisclosed.

Even the body layout is uncertain, since the predecessor was a four-legged wheeled machine while reports describe Xiao Liu as an upper body with two grippers for massage. There is no price, because this is a lab demonstrator rather than a product.

A research robot with a comparable focus on home assistance and care is the European ARMAR-7, likewise developed in a laboratory rather than by a sales department.