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Meta Platforms has aggressively expanded its artificial intelligence ambitions by recruiting Chinese industry veteran Xu Rui to lead a newly formed AI hardware team. Operating within Meta’s superintelligence unit, this new division will develop AI-centric devices entirely separate from the company’s Reality Labs, which currently handles its popular smart glasses and virtual reality headsets. The strategic hire brings a wealth of experience in humanoid robots, extended reality, and consumer electronics to Meta's growing hardware ecosystem.
Xu brings a deep portfolio of consumer hardware experience from several major Chinese tech giants. A graduate of the Harbin Institute of Technology and Seoul National University, his early career included serving as director of global expansion at Xiaomi from 2015 to 2017. During this period, Xiaomi heavily invested in overseas smart TV offerings and secured a landmark deal with Google to launch its first Android device in the US market. From 2020 to 2022, Xu operated as the general manager of ByteDance’s New Stone Lab hardware unit, overseeing the release of consumer products like the Dali smart lamp, a device designed to let parents monitor children during homework sessions.
Following his tenure at ByteDance, Xu transitioned to Tencent’s extended reality (XR) device team, where he worked from 2022 to 2024. His recent career shifted toward the Silicon Valley start-up ecosystem, joining the Palo Alto-based humanoid robotics firm K-Scale Labs in 2024 before the company declared bankruptcy in November. He subsequently joined Dreamer, an AI agent builder start-up, which Meta officially acquired in March 2026, paving the way for his new leadership role.
Strategic Shift in Meta's Hardware Vision
The decision to isolate this new AI hardware team from Reality Labs signals a distinct pivot in Meta's product strategy. While Reality Labs remains heavily focused on the metaverse and spatial computing through the Quest headsets and Ray-Ban smart glasses, placing Xu Rui within the superintelligence unit suggests Meta is exploring dedicated, standalone AI devices. This structural separation indicates that Meta views AI hardware as a fundamentally different category from virtual and augmented reality.
By acquiring Dreamer and tapping an executive with a proven track record of rapidly scaling consumer electronics at Xiaomi and ByteDance, Meta is positioning itself to compete directly in the emerging market of physical AI agents. Xu's diverse background - spanning smart home devices, XR, and humanoid robotics - gives Meta the specialized leadership required to translate its massive software-based AI models into tangible, everyday consumer hardware.
