Sharpa: Mysterious Robotics Company Emerges from the Shadows

Sharpa: The Mysterious Robotics Company Emerges from the Shadows

The most enigmatic company in the field of robotics is stepping into the light. If you ask industry specialists who is the most discussed and mysterious company in the field of embodied AI in 2025, many would vote for the Singapore-based startup Sharpa. In May 2025, at the industry conference ICRA, the dexterous hand presented by Sharpa captured the attention of the entire industry.

This hand is capable of performing delicate operations, such as cleaning eggshells and using scissors, almost like a human hand. It has a 1:1 size ratio with a human hand, and each fingertip is equipped with 1,000 tactile sensors. At that time, one of the leading investors in embodied AI shared his opinion about the company: "The product's impact is stunning.

I contacted them back in August, but they avoided me. To this day, I don't know who is in charge." Another investor confirmed this information: "I heard that you can contact Sharpa through the head of investment and financing at Hesai Technology.

I proposed discussing investment-related matters with Sharpa, but was refused." Difficulties with cooperation are not limited to investors alone. Many specialists in embodied AI note that they are interested in Sharpa Wave, which costs around $50,000 USD, but purchasing it is not straightforward.

The founder of a company developing embodied AI models also mentioned that their own research and development of algorithms should be connected with hardware, and Sharpa is the best hardware for dexterous hands. But in late 2025, when he contacted them, he was told that there is currently no available inventory, and one can only travel to Shanghai to experiment with dexterous hands at Sharpa. At the recently concluded CES 2026 exhibition, Sharpa, founded about a year ago, presented the Sharpa North robot for the first time.

This robot is equipped with Sharpa's proprietary dexterous hand and possesses not only flexible arm movements, but also the ability to make autonomous decisions. It can play ping-pong with people on the spot, fold pinwheels, and also precisely press the camera shutter button and pull the lever when photographing with a Polaroid. Well-known AI investor Fu Sheng evaluated it as "a robot performing the most complex tasks."

Speculation about Sharpa's origins has never ceased, but only recently was the mystery revealed: according to a LatePost report, the co-founders of Sharpa are Hesai Technology CEO Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing, and Chief Scientific Officer Sun Kai. The official website shows that Hesai Technology is currently the world's number one company in the market share of automotive lidar. It is said that the company's name was taken from "San Jose" in Silicon Valley, because this was the starting point of the learning and entrepreneurship story of the three founders in the United States.

Sharpa was registered in Singapore, which may be related to the company's desire to have a more neutral position in the international market, considering the difficulties that Hesai Technology faced in the United States. In 2024, Hesai Technology was added to the US Department of Defense's list of "Chinese military enterprises," which led to a sharp drop in stock prices. Despite repeated attempts, the issue was not resolved.

Hesai Technology filed a lawsuit, but in July 2025, it lost the case in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. The establishment of Sharpa in Singapore may be a strategic move to circumvent these restrictions and continue global expansion.