On May 9, xNova VC proudly co-hosted HYSTA Talk: AI + Robotics together with HYSTA (Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association), Carnegie Mellon University, Association of Chinese Entrepreneurs (ACE) at Berkeley, and DeepReach.ai — a high-signal closed-door gathering that brought together many of the leading researchers, founders, engineers, and investors shaping the future of Robotics, Embodied AI, Physical AI, Spatial Intelligence, and World Models.
With more than 50 attendees, the event represented an extraordinary concentration of talent across Silicon Valley’s robotics ecosystem — bringing together participants from top technology companies, leading robotics startups, and world-class research institutions.
Attendees included researchers, scientists, and technical leaders from companies such as NVIDIA, OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Amazon, Waymo, Qualcomm, and Rhoda AI, alongside founders and core team members from standout robotics companies including Flexiv, RoboForce, Anyware Robotics, and Dyna Robotics.
The gathering also featured professors and researchers from leading universities and laboratories, including Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, Princeton University, UC Berkeley, UCSB, MIT, and others.
A major highlight of the evening was the keynote delivered by Professor Ding Zhao: “Safe Embodied AI: From Theories to Large-Scale Deployment.”
Throughout the evening, participants engaged in deep discussions around several important themes shaping the future of robotics and embodied intelligence:
The true challenge in robotics is not demos, but large-scale deployment
Safety and real-world reliability remain core bottlenecks for Embodied AI
Humanoid robots may ultimately matter less than achieving human-like capabilities and reliable task completion
Robotics will not evolve as a purely software-driven industry like LLMs; instead, it will require deep integration across AI, hardware, manufacturing, supply chain, data, and deployment
One message became increasingly clear across the discussions: AI is rapidly moving from the digital world into the physical world.
What made the gathering especially meaningful was not only the caliber of attendees, but also the openness, humility, and depth of the conversations. Researchers, founders, and technical leaders spent hours exchanging ideas, discussing real-world deployment challenges, and exploring what it will take to bring intelligent systems into physical environments at scale.
At xNova VC, we believe many of the defining opportunities of the AI-native era will emerge from ecosystems like this — where frontier researchers, builders, operators, and founders openly collaborate, share insights, and push the industry forward together.
We are deeply grateful to HYSTA, all speakers, organizers, volunteers, partners, and attendees who helped make this event possible.
We look forward to supporting more founder gatherings, closed-door salons, and community-driven conversations at the frontier of AI and emerging technologies.
