China's game makers chase AI and robots with $1.13B tech fund
What's the deal? Lisi Capital has closed its Tianjin Lisi Xingshen Equity Investment Partnership, a private equity fund of US$1.03B. Perfect WorldDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, one of China's largest game publishers, disclosed on October 21 that it had subscribed US$6.88M to the fund, a roughly 0.66% stake.
Where's the money going? Lisi Capital, which runs the fund as executing partner, focuses on digital industries and smart manufacturing. Its past targets span AI, chips, robots, gaming and social, smart education, and smart medicine.
Why now? Chinese game companies have moved aggressively into emerging tech since the second half of 2026. Perfect WorldDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → also backed a second fund, Shixiang Shangshi, with US$13.8M, and Giant NetworkDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → committed US$13.8M to a separate frontier-tech fund in late August.
What's the endgame? Some firms are investing directly rather than through funds. Kuro GamesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → took a 15% stake in AI startup Yanzhiyu Technology, which builds multimodal models for voice, music, video translation, and 3D character systems for anime content.
What's the broader play? Paper Games founder Yao Runhao went further, taking 60% control of a new Shanghai robotics company covering smart robot development and AI hardware sales. The logic: character IP and emotional-interaction know-how from games map onto humanoid robots.
What could go wrong? Most fund investments are decided by professional managers, so a stake does not yet mean a game business has achieved technical synergy. Perfect World is worth watching here: it posted a US$16.2M loss in the first half of 2026 as revenue fell year-on-year.
The signal: Chinese game studios increasingly see AI, chips, and robots as the next growth engine, whether through funds, equity stakes, or wholly new ventures. Whether those bets feed back into their core business depends on integration that is still to come.
Read more: sohu.com
Image credit: IBM Research
