At the 2026 Artificial Intelligence Terminal Industry Expo, a silver-gray robot puppy became the focus of the audience. It moves flexibly, sometimes dances, and can also tilt its head to respond to the audience's bilingual questions - this popular "Jinling puppy" Baby Alpha A3 comes from Nanjing Weilan Intelligent Technology (hereinafter referred to as "Weilan Technology"). It can not only perform talents, but also has the capabilities of home accompaniment and intelligent creation. It has now gone abroad.
Few people know that this consumer-grade robot dog, which has attracted countless fans, was dormant in the laboratory of the Research and Innovation Park in Jiangbei New District, Nanjing a few years ago. It struggled to get started amid tight funds and doubts from the outside world. The Nanjing Branch of China Construction Bank was the first bank to accompany it in its start-up.
Starting a business: They are all waiting and watching, we choose to believe
In 2019, Weilan Technology landed in the Research and Innovation Park of Jiangbei New District, Nanjing. In the laboratory, prototypes are debugged and iterated over and over again, R&D funds continue to be invested, and corporate debts continue to accumulate. At that time, the domestic consumer-grade quadruped robot track was still in its infancy. Imported chips were driving up the cost of the entire machine. Most of its peers were focused on the B-end commercial market, and almost no one was optimistic that embodied intelligence would truly enter ordinary households.
Consumer-grade robots mean that the price must be within a range acceptable to the public. Asset-light technology innovation companies like Weilan Technology lack traditional collateral and have no mature profit models to refer to. Many banks are cautious and wait-and-see. "I hold dozens of patents in my hands, and prototypes are piled up in the laboratory. Financing is blocked at every turn, and the report data once turned on a red light. It feels like the project will collapse before dawn before it even gets off the ground." Weilan Technology's accounting specialist recalled the initial scene with emotion.
The turning point came from a chance customer interaction. An angel investor who is also a customer of the Nanjing Branch mentioned this start-up to China Construction Bank that was focusing on hard technology while communicating with the account manager of Nanjing Pukou Branch.
The team from Nanjing Pukou Sub-branch immediately set off for the laboratory in the Research and Innovation Park. The office space here is a bit plain and simple, and there are no eye-catching revenue reports. Only the R&D team department is brightly lit, the table is filled with iterated prototype components, and stacks of patented materials record every detail of scientific research. Looking at this, the account manager did not simply judge the financial statements, but decided to study the patents with concentration. Through multiple door-to-door visits, we inspected the debugging equipment of R&D personnel and determined the long-term value of the embodied smart track. Through many in-depth discussions with core R&D leaders, the branch learned that although embodied intelligence has not yet formed a mature large-scale market, it has entered a future track with scarce competition and broad prospects.
"Counting bricks, this company is indeed not good; but looking at technology, this company may boost an industry." The branch team reached a consensus.
Traditional credit products are not suitable for the growth pace of such technological innovation enterprises. The branch repeatedly refined its service plan and used China Construction Bank's "Su Zhidai" intellectual property pledge product to provide 10 million yuan in loans to enterprises. With the funds arriving in time, Weilan Technology finally had the confidence to move forward, and China Construction Bank became the earliest "believer" in the company's growth.
Technological breakthrough: don’t change the track, just change a “Chinese brain”
Many people have the impression that quadruped robots are just remote-controlled toys that can do somersaults. And for this "Jinling puppy" to take root in the family scene, it must cross a key hurdle-the intelligent "brain".
At that time, the robot dog's mechanical gait could already walk and jump, but its level of intelligent interaction was limited and it could not understand complex instructions. Imported chips not only have high costs, but also firmly restrict the space for product iteration. At that time, many peers turned to commercial customization, which offered fast money and low risks, but Weilan Technology insisted on staying in the home consumption track.
"No matter how difficult the home consumption track is, this is the direction we are looking for. The mechanical skeleton is not difficult, but the intelligent brain must be in your own hands," said the core R&D leader of Weilan Technology. "Our 'puppy' must not only run steadily and jump high, but also understand human speech and understand the world."
Therefore, the company focused on the independence of domestic chips. At the critical juncture when all-out efforts are being made to tackle the problem, China Construction Bank once again took over and invested 10 million yuan in "Specialized Special New Loans" to provide a key link in the technical tackle. The R&D team went beyond the idea of single-chip design and independently built a hybrid heterogeneous computing cluster with A3 chips. Six domestic chips collaborated for parallel computing, allowing the robot dog to truly understand instructions and identify the environment, balancing product performance and manufacturing costs in one fell swoop.
Technological breakthroughs are quickly translated into market results: the cumulative sales of the Baby Alpha series of robot dogs have exceeded 25,000 units, and have entered 295 cities across the country; the company was selected as one of the top 50 Chinese artificial intelligence technology companies in Forbes in 2025, and holds hundreds of invention patents. This is not only the iterative rebirth of a robot dog, but also a real breakthrough for domestic chips in the field of embodied intelligence.
Based on the cooperation practice with Weilan Technology, the Nanjing Branch has gradually developed a set of scientific and technological innovation service strategies that "focus on patents, look at the team, and aim at the track", breaking away from the traditional reliance on collateral, allowing more hard technology seeds that have taken root in the laboratory to receive financial water.
Sailing to the sea: from Nanjing to the world
In 2026, the first domestic stop of Alpha Robot Dog’s global tour will be held in Nanjing. On the colorful booth, the robot dog flexibly rotates its joints to sense the surrounding environment. Many children gathered around the booth for a long time and were unwilling to leave. Some elderly citizens stopped and asked: "Can it chat with the elderly and relieve their boredom?"
After establishing a foothold in the domestic market, Weilan Technology has set its sights overseas. But the road to going overseas is not easy: financial support is needed to build overseas marketing channels and localized research and development, and a series of new problems such as cross-border settlement, exchange rate fluctuations, and overseas business compliance are coming one after another.
China Construction Bank's financial services have also been upgraded in line with the growth of enterprises. They are no longer limited to credit extension, but have launched a full-chain companionship model of "financing + intelligence integration".
From providing timely help in the early stage of start-up to providing full support during the technical tough period, China Construction Bank has provided a total of 50 million yuan in credit support to Weilan Technology. On this basis, China Construction Bank's services continue to extend outward: relying on its global network advantages, it provides customized cross-border settlement solutions for enterprises, supporting exchange rate hedging tools, and providing support for overseas exhibition tours and overseas channel expansion. From lending money to enterprises, to helping enterprises sell goods, manage money, and avoid risks, China Construction Bank has become the technology and financial "partner" accompanying enterprises, embedded in every key node of enterprises from starting a business locally to sailing overseas.
In seven years, Weilan Technology has gone from owning only a small laboratory in Jiangbei Research and Innovation Park to building China's first self-owned mass production factory for four-legged robots. From producing start-up prototypes that no one cares about, to launching domestic embodied smart products with the largest share of the home consumer market, the company has polished a once-disliked dream into a vivid business card of "Intelligent Made in China". And when the "Jinling Puppy" moves on its mechanical feet to the wider world, the entire financial cycle accompanies hard technology to take root and grow up. The story of the partnership between local science and technology enterprises and China Construction Bank continues to be written.
