As per a January 19 report from Late Auto, the trio behind Hesai Technology—CEO Li Yifan, CTO Xiang Shaoqing, and Chief Scientist Sun Kai—came together at the close of 2024 to establish a robotics company named Sharpa. Their mission: to develop versatile robots and their essential components. These three leaders are mainly in charge of providing strategic oversight and planning the company's direction, rather than getting involved in the day-to-day operations. Sharpa functions as an independent entity, with no equity ties or business control from Hesai Technology, and it currently boasts a workforce of over 100 individuals. At CES 2026, Sharpa made a splash by introducing its inaugural fully autonomous full-body robot, North. This robot showcased its prowess by performing four tasks autonomously: engaging in table tennis matches, capturing instant photographs, dealing cards, and crafting handmade paper windmills. North's remarkable feats can be credited to Sharpa's exclusive neural network model, cutting-edge kinematics and dynamics optimization technology, and the SharpaWave highly dexterous robotic hand. Prior to this, Sharpa had also unveiled its robotic end-effector, the SharpaWave, which boasts 22 active degrees of freedom and an ultra-sensitive tactile feedback system with a tactile resolution that reaches the sub-millimeter scale.