Over 1 billion, Thunderbird Innovation received financing from China Mobile and China Unicom

On January 5, Thunderbird Innovation announced that it had completed a new round of financing of over 1 billion yuan, led by China Mobile Chain Fund and CITIC Goldstone, with participation from China Unicom's Lianchuang Innovation Fund and other institutions.

According to Caijing.com news, this is the first time a domestic operator has invested in the smart glasses track. Thunderbird said that it will cooperate with operators: on the one hand, Thunderbird will use the operators' nationwide offline service outlets and hundreds of millions of user bases to reach a wider range of consumer groups, and try sales models such as "recharge phone bills to get glasses" and "contract phones"; on the other hand, Thunderbird will use the operators' resources in key communication technologies such as eSIM and 5G, as well as AI services and content ecology to promote the continuous evolution of products.

In addition, according to industry media disclosures, in addition to cash investment, operators have also signed a long-term strategic cooperation agreement with Thunderbird Innovation, covering eSIM and related technologies, rechargeable phone charges, free glasses, channel laying and cloud services.

It is worth noting that at the CES 2026 exhibition, the "Thunderbird X3 Pro Project eSIM" AR glasses exhibited by Thunderbird Innovation integrated the eSIM communication module and 4G protocol support.

According to reports, Thunderbird's first eSIM smart glasses can achieve multiple functions including making and receiving calls, multi-modal AI conversations, high-quality AI real-time translation, online streaming music, etc. without the need for a mobile phone to connect to the Internet. It is known as "the first consumer-grade AR smart glasses with truly independent communication capabilities." At the same time, the glasses use a binocular full-color Micro LED display solution.

According to data, Thunderbird Innovation was founded in 2021 and is one of the major players in the AR glasses market. It has formed three consumer-grade AR glasses product lines, X, Air, and V series. Relevant data shows that the cumulative number of Thunderbird Innovation users worldwide has exceeded 500,000.

In terms of production capacity layout, Thunderbird Innovation’s Thunderbird Optical Intelligent Manufacturing Factory in Nanhu, Jiaxing was officially put into operation. In the future, the factory will undertake research and development tasks such as optical simulation, opto-mechanical module design and automation equipment, and is expected to have an annual output of 1.05 million sets of opto-mechanical modules.

In addition, Thunderbird Innovation's XR complete machine R&D and manufacturing headquarters, with a total investment of 1 billion yuan, also signed a contract with Wuxi in 2024 to build an XR complete machine R&D center, an XR complete machine production line and a Yuanverse ecological development center. Among them, after the first phase of the project is completed, the annual production capacity of XR complete machines is estimated to be approximately 350,000 units, which is expected to be fully reached within 5 years. After reaching full production, the annual production capacity of 1 million complete XR machines will be achieved, and the annual output value will exceed 2 billion yuan.