Author: Nancy, PANews
Original Title: Lobster Comes Ashore, Playing the "Game" of AI Hardware Lego
In March, the air is filled not only with the breath of spring but also with the scent of lobster from the AI community.
As the whole nation begins to "raise lobsters," the open-source framework OpenClaw is stepping out of the screen into reality, permeating and reconstructing the hardware world. Meanwhile, a lobster assembly movement is rapidly spreading across China, stirring up the landscape of domestic large models.
Agents Step Out of the Screen, Building Hardware Like Lego
Just like Lego bricks, more and more hardware products are being combined with OpenClaw to assemble various forms of smart devices.
The Leqi AI Glasses Rokid Glasses, a pair of AI glasses with display functionality, recently launched a seemingly simple yet highly imaginative feature: customizable agents. Through a standard SSE interface, users can connect the glasses to any backend system, such as OpenClaw. In other words, these glasses have become a programmable device that can integrate various AI capabilities.
After connecting to OpenClaw, the Apple Watch transforms into an AI control terminal that is always available. Users can directly view their inbox, receive notifications, approve/reject actions, quickly reply, and even send commands on the watch without relying on their phone.
After the wearable device company WHOOP connected to OpenClaw, AI can automatically read key data such as sleep scores, recovery capacity, and HRV, and push personalized exercise and rest suggestions daily, upgrading from a recording tool to a health decision-making assistant.
If wearable devices are just the beginning, the robotics field holds even more imagination.
After Songling Robotics' seven-axis robotic arm NERO was connected to OpenClaw, users no longer need to write complex control programs. They simply issue instructions in natural language, such as asking the robotic arm to move an object to a specified location. OpenClaw automatically parses the semantics, plans the motion path, generates control scripts, and executes them.
Some companies have made even more radical attempts. For example, AI company DeepMirror integrated OpenClaw into its core physical AI product and connected it to Unitree Robotics' robot software middleware, enabling the robot to understand space and time. The system can recognize people, remember object locations, and record the sequence of events, forming a kind of world memory. This means AI not only understands language but also continuously comprehends changes in the real world.
Beyond hardware manufacturers, individual developers and enthusiasts are also using OpenClaw to modify various hardware devices.
For instance, the recently popular open-source project VisionClaw combines Meta's Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, developed in collaboration with Ray-Ban, with OpenClaw. Users simply tap the glasses or say a command, and the system can understand, explore, and even execute tasks based on the camera's view, becoming a visual AI Agent.
After someone connected the Vbot super robot dog to OpenClaw, it was no longer limited to preset programs. In the past, robot dogs were more like automated devices performing fixed actions. After integrating with the Agent, they can autonomously plan actions based on tasks, such as patrolling indoors, searching for targets, or providing environmental feedback.
Additionally, on platforms like GitHub, X, and Xiaohongshu, OpenClaw is continuously "transforming." Some have embedded OpenClaw into second-hand phones, others have connected it to smartwatches, or taken full control of smart homes. These experiments are breaking the existing boundaries of smart hardware, opening up more possibilities and imagination.
These ongoing explorations of smart hardware based on OpenClaw will promote the popularization of Agents among the masses. However, risks such as security vulnerabilities from system permissions and the token costs incurred by continuous model calls are practical challenges that need to be addressed in the future.
Lobster "Comes Ashore," Domestic Tokens Accelerate "Going Global"
Currently, the OpenClaw trend is rapidly sweeping across China, not only triggering a rush by major companies but also driving policy support and high player enthusiasm.
In Shenzhen, this heat has become a cityscape phenomenon. A "free lobster installation" booth set up at the entrance of Tencent Tower attracted a queue of over a thousand people, including elementary school students and the elderly. Related photos flooded social media. Various lobster-themed gatherings are frequently held, with many events full to capacity and even requiring emergency seating. The local government plans to introduce new policies to support "raising lobsters."
Even the renowned "Hardware Silicon Valley" Huaqiangbei has entered the OpenClaw business, with various modified lobster boxes becoming new bestsellers.
The OpenClaw storm sweeping China has unexpectedly brought new growth opportunities to domestic large model manufacturers, accelerating the global expansion of Chinese tokens.
According to the latest data from OpenRouter, the world's largest API aggregation platform, the token consumption of the top ten global models this week approached 8.5 trillion, with Chinese models already accounting for half of the global actual call volume. In the rankings, several Chinese models occupy core positions, particularly MiniMax M2.5, which稳居榜首 (firmly holds the top spot) with nearly 2 trillion calls this week, a growth of 21%.
Amid the explosive growth in call volume, MiniMax has also become one of the hotly speculated lobster concept stocks, its stock price surging over 200% this year. Dramatically, just two months after its IPO, MiniMax's market capitalization surpassed that of Baidu. Its founder and CEO, Yan Junjie, once interned at Baidu and received the second Baidu Scholarship. In the past two days, its stock price climbed further after appearing on the PinchBench榜单 (leaderboard) and being shared on social media by OpenClaw's father, Peter Steinberger. According to MiniMax's recent first financial report, although still in a loss-making state, its revenue structure has significantly improved, with international markets contributing over 70%.
More notably, OpenClaw is the largest single application on OpenRouter. This month, its call volume surged to number one globally, more than double that of the second-place Kilo Code, and it is also a key driver for the overseas expansion of domestic large models.
Among the top five models used by OpenClaw, three are from domestic large models. Among them, Kimi2.5 stands out prominently. OpenClaw announced last month that it would designate Kimi as its first official free main model, further boosting its usage scale. Over the past two months, Kimi's paid user orders have grown significantly, directly causing its revenue curve to shoot up vertically. Its revenue in the last 20 days alone has exceeded that of the entire year 2025, and its overseas revenue has surpassed domestic revenue for the first time.
It is particularly important to note that OpenRouter's data does not cover all global real usage. Due to its integration convenience and low-cost model access, it is quite popular among developers and has been noticed multiple times by Peter Steinberger. Nevertheless, OpenRouter's user base has exceeded 5 million, primarily overseas, making this data more referential and, to some extent, reflecting the "offensive" of Chinese large models in the international market.
On this new track of Agents, the boundaries between various roles are being redefined. Hardware manufacturers, developers, and large model companies are all being drawn into the same ecosystem.
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