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Recently, a recruitment announcement by Ubtech Robotics (09880.HK), a listed company in the robotics sector, drew market attention. The company is offering an annual salary starting at 15 million yuan, with a maximum of up to 124 million yuan, to recruit globally for a Chief Embodied Intelligence Scientist. This signals the battle for top-tier Chief Scientists has begun. Geekplus-W (02590.HK), which holds the global AMR market share leadership for seven consecutive years and recently achieved profitability, appointed Dr. Zhao Hao, one of the 'Tsinghua Embodied Intelligence Quintet,' as the Chief Scientist of its embodied intelligence subsidiary in February. The two leading robotics companies have simultaneously placed their bets on top academic talent, marking the entry of the embodied intelligence sector into an era of 'Chief Scientist' arms race. Behind the astronomical salaries, Chief Scientists become strategic high ground. The position advertised by Ubtech Robotics requires leading research in core areas such as vision-language-action models and foundational robot models, driving cutting-edge technologies from the lab to diverse application scenarios. This move echoes Geekplus-W's earlier strategy. On February 20, Geekplus-W officially signed Assistant Professor Zhao Hao from Tsinghua University's Institute for AI Industry Research. Zhao Hao, known as the 'pioneer in scene understanding,' will integrate frontier achievements like Sim-to-Real, zero-shot generalization, and world models into industrial applications, helping Geekplus-W achieve technological leaps. Top academic talents are moving from laboratories to the front lines of industry. Peng Zhihui, known as 'Zhihui Jun,' left Huawei's 'Genius Youth' program to start Zhiyuan Robotics, which has a valuation nearing 15 billion yuan. Xu Huazhe, part of the 'Tsinghua Embodied Intelligence Quintet,' proposed the 3D diffusion strategy DP3 to improve robot operational learning efficiency. His company, Xinghaitu, is projected to exceed a valuation of 20 billion yuan by 2026. These 'technical stars' with academic depth and engineering capabilities are becoming targets of fierce competition among technology enterprises. This phenomenon confirms the industry consensus: In the uncharted territory of embodied intelligence, securing top academic minds will define the next-generation technological roadmap. AI and embodied intelligence technologies have become core growth engines for enterprises. Geekplus-W’s 2025 financial report shows a 31.6% year-over-year revenue increase to 3.171 billion yuan, a 35.5% gross margin, and a positive adjusted net profit. Its unmanned picking station and Gino 1, the world’s first humanoid general-purpose warehouse robot, have achieved mass production. Ubtech Robotics’ 2025 revenue reached 2.001 billion yuan, with embodied intelligent humanoid robots contributing 41% of income. The company’s R&D expenses exceeded 500 million yuan in 2025, accounting for 25.4% of revenue, with cumulative R&D investment reaching 1.9 billion yuan over four years. After the recruitment announcement, Ubtech’s stock surged over 17% intraday. Zhiyuan Robotics also demonstrated strong momentum in 2025, with shipments exceeding several thousand units and revenue growing several-fold. Its general-purpose robots, such as the Yuanzheng A2, have been deployed in automotive factories. Zhihui Jun’s transition from Huawei’s 'Genius Youth' program to entrepreneurship validated the value of top technical minds for embodied intelligence enterprises. Leading companies are treating 'top academic minds' as strategic infrastructure, reflecting an industry consensus: in the uncharted territory of embodied intelligence, securing these minds will shape the future of technological leadership.