Compostable Robot Endures Million Cycles, Disappears into Soil

A new fully compostable soft robotic system has been developed that survives over one million uses before entirely decomposing in soil. This innovative robot matches the durability of conventional robots while leaving no toxic residues behind.

Credit: Youtube/Seoul National University

The development addresses a persistent challenge in robotics, where materials typically face a trade-off between biodegradability and performance. Global electronic waste reached approximately 62 million metric tons in 2022, with soft robots contributing to this accumulation.

A research team from Seoul National University, Sogang University, and Johannes Kepler University Linz created the system. Professor Seung-Kyun Kang of Seoul National University, a lead researcher, stated that this work “sets a new benchmark for sustainable robotics.”

The robot’s structural frame consists of poly(glycerol sebacate), or PGS. This water-free biodegradable elastomer is known for its low hysteresis and strong elastic recovery.

The PGS-based bending actuator maintained consistent bending angles and output forces over one million actuation cycles. It also showed stable performance after extended storage, meeting a critical requirement for real-world deployment.

Its embedded electronics are similarly unconventional, utilising biodegradable inorganic components instead of traditional metal and semiconductor parts. These electronics decompose concurrently with the structural frame.

This integration results in a fully degradable system, ensuring both the structure and electronics decompose cleanly, leaving no residual waste. Under industrial composting conditions, the complete robotic system’s components decomposed within a few months.

Subsequent plant growth tests on the resulting compost confirmed the absence of environmental toxicity. This indicates the robot not only degrades but also produces a usable soil amendment.

The research team demonstrated practical field applications for agricultural use cases. Biodegradable inorganic electronic components, made from magnesium, molybdenum, and silicon, were combined within a single soft robotic finger.

These components included sensors for curvature, strain, touch, temperature, humidity, and pH, alongside heaters, electrical stimulators, and drug-delivery modules. This shows a highly integrated, multifunctional biodegradable electronic platform.

This research directly addresses growing oversight in the robotics industry regarding end-of-life considerations. The demonstrated robot redefines what it means for a robot to be truly disposable.

The global soft robotics market is expected to grow rapidly, making the safe disposal of these devices increasingly important. This research sets a new benchmark for sustainable robotics.

These findings were published in the journal Nature Sustainability.

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• A fully compostable soft robotic system has been developed.

• The robot endures over one million actuation cycles, matching conventional robot durability.

• It fully decomposes in soil within months, leaving no toxic residues and producing usable soil amendment.

Source: INTERESTING ENGINEERING

China Urges EV Makers to Prioritise Innovation Over Price War

Chinese authorities are pushing for stricter oversight of the electric vehicle market, urging carmakers to prioritise technological innovation. This directive comes as manufacturers face cooling demand and the end of government subsidies.

Credit: UNSPLASH

Government bodies, including the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the State Administration for Market Regulation, convened 17 major carmakers. The meeting aimed to regulate competition and stabilise a sector marked by an ongoing price war.

Officials pledged to strengthen price monitoring and cost investigations. Companies were also urged to honour their 60-day payment cycle commitment to suppliers.

A progress report from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, a government-backed industry consortium, indicated that the 17 carmakers reduced average payment cycles to 54 days. Four of these carmakers settled payments in under 50 days.

Extended payment cycles have been a cost-cutting measure in China’s automobile market, but they have reduced supply-chain profitability. This occurs even as Beijing works to counter deflationary pressures.

The government encouraged companies to shift from price-based competition to innovation-led growth. This involves accelerating the development of domestic automotive chips, foundational software, and self-driving systems to lessen reliance on foreign technology.

With direct subsidies now phased out, Beijing has focused on fostering organic demand and global expansion. This includes promoting vehicle trade-in programmes and the broader use of new-energy heavy trucks.

The vehicle trade-in subsidy scheme, renewed at the end of 2025, provides cash incentives for buyers replacing older vehicles. New-energy models receive higher subsidies.

Authorities plan policy documents to foster a healthy car modification market, aiming to unlock consumer potential. The government also seeks to enhance financial credit services and international logistics to support Chinese EV exports and overseas operations.

In the first two months of the year, China sold more than 1.7 million new-energy vehicles, a 7% decrease from the previous year. This decline occurred as consumers became more budget-conscious following the phasing out of a 10% sales tax exemption.

Electric vehicle makers, including BYD, have shifted their focus in recent launches to supercharging technology and updated intelligent driving systems. They are also accelerating overseas sales efforts.

Sales of electric vehicles in Europe increased by 33% year on year to 4.3 million units in 2025. This data comes from Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, a London-based minerals research and pricing firm.

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• Chinese authorities are urging electric vehicle makers to focus on innovation over aggressive discounting.

• Government bodies met with 17 major carmakers to regulate competition and stabilise the market.

• Officials pledged to strengthen price monitoring and called for companies to honour supplier payment cycles.

Source: SCMP

Xiaomi Confirms Mysterious Hunter Alpha AI Model as MiMo-V2-Pro

A powerful artificial intelligence model that appeared anonymously on a developer platform last week was revealed to be from Chinese smartphone and electric vehicle giant Xiaomi. The model, named Hunter Alpha, had fuelled speculation that startup DeepSeek was quietly testing its next-generation system ahead of a launch.

Credit: XIAOMI

Xiaomi’s AI model team MiMo confirmed Hunter Alpha was an “early internal test build of MiMo-V2-Pro,” a flagship model. MiMo-V2-Pro is designed to serve as the “brain” of AI agents, tools that enable users to execute complex tasks with fewer human prompts and supervision than a chatbot.

MiMo is run by former DeepSeek researcher Luo Fuli. The release of DeepSeek’s low-cost models, DeepSeek-V3 and R1, triggered a global tech stock selloff last year, causing investors to question the expenditure of billions of dollars on AI computing power.

Since then, there has been significant interest in DeepSeek-V4, a next-generation model that has not yet been released. The mysterious free model, Hunter Alpha, surfaced on the AI gateway platform OpenRouter without any developer attribution.

Xiaomi’s new model release coincides with the rapid adoption of OpenClaw, an open-source agent framework, by users in China. Luo described the situation as a “quiet ambush,” noting the swift shift from a chat to an agent paradigm.

Luo added that she saw this rapid shift firsthand while building DeepSeek R1. MiMo-V2-Pro will partner with five major agent frameworks, including OpenClaw, to offer a week of free access to developers worldwide.

During tests conducted last week, the Hunter Alpha chatbot described itself as “a Chinese AI model primarily trained in Chinese,” and said its data extended back to May 2025. This knowledge cutoff point was also reported by DeepSeek’s own chatbot.

When asked about its creator, however, the system declined to identify its developer. The chatbot stated it only knew its name, parameter scale, and context window length.

Hunter Alpha’s profile page on OpenRouter described it as a 1-trillion-parameter model, meaning it was trained using roughly one trillion adjustable values. These values determine how the system processes language and generates responses.

The system also advertised a context window of up to one million tokens, a measure of how much text an AI model can process or remember during a single interaction. A token roughly corresponds to a short piece of text, such as part of a word.

Engineer Nabil Haouam, who builds AI agent systems, highlighted the combination of Hunter Alpha’s 1-million-token context, its reasoning capability, and free access. Haouam noted that most frontier models with that context window typically come with real cost at scale.

These specifications resembled expectations in local media for DeepSeek’s next-generation V4 model, which Chinese outlets have reported could launch as early as April. Umur Ozkul, who runs independent AI benchmark tests, said speculation connecting the model to DeepSeek was understandable given the timing and advertised capabilities.

Stealth model launches are not unusual, as platforms like OpenRouter allow developers to send queries to dozens of AI models through a single interface, making them a popular testing ground for new systems. An anonymous model called Pony Alpha appeared on OpenRouter in February before Chinese firm Zhipu AI confirmed it was part of its GLM-5 system five days later.

A notice on Hunter Alpha’s profile page indicated that all prompts and completions for the model are logged by the provider and may be used to improve the model. This underscores the industry-wide practice of using stealth model launches for unbiased feedback.

The model was adopted rapidly after appearing on the platform, surpassing one trillion tokens in total usage. It also topped the leaderboard charts on OpenRouter, according to MiMo. Xiaomi’s Hong Kong-listed shares surged as much as 5.8% on Thursday.

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• Xiaomi confirmed its AI team MiMo developed the mysterious Hunter Alpha model.

• Hunter Alpha is an early test build of MiMo-V2-Pro, a flagship AI agent model.

• The model fueled speculation that it was DeepSeek’s next-generation V4 system.

Source: REUTERS