China is chasing Tesla. It wants its own robots that look and work like humans

 

"The Middle Kingdom dominates the electric vehicle market, but it may soon overtake Tesla in the race to build battery-powered humanoid robots that are to replace human workers.

 

Chinese companies involved in the development and production of humanoid robots have huge support from the government and President Xi Jinping, who is an advocate of developing "new productive forces" in technology. In January, the city of Beijing launched a $1.4 billion state fund for robotics. In July, Shanghai announced plans to create a $1.4 billion humanoid industry fund. The robots presented at the World Robot Conference in Beijing (more than two dozen Chinese companies presented humanoid robots there) were created thanks to the earlier development of the automotive industry, which switched to the production of electric vehicles. Without this, it would not have been possible to create so many robot prototypes so quickly - Reuters points out.

 

Who makes humanoids

 

Analysts at Goldman Sachs predict the annual global market for humanoid robots will reach $38 billion by 2035, with nearly 1.4 million shipments for consumer and industrial applications. The cost of materials to build them has been estimated to have fallen to about $150,000 per unit by 2023, excluding research and development costs. “There is a lot of room to reduce costs,” said Hu Debo, CEO of Shanghai Kepler Exploration Robotics, a company he co-founded last year after being inspired by Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot. “China specializes in rapid iteration and production,” he added, speaking to Reuters. Hu’s company is working on a fifth version of the worker robot, which is set to be tested in factories.

 

He expects a single robot to sell for less than $30,000.

 

A whole host of new companies have joined the giants of humanoid production, such as Boston Dynamics, Agility and Figure. Experts expect progress in robotics to accelerate in the near future, thanks in part to artificial intelligence.

 

When Tesla opened its Shanghai factory in 2019, Chinese officials said they expected the electric vehicle pioneer to bring a “catfish effect” (a strong competitor makes the weaker better) to the Chinese industry. Tesla’s Optimus robot had a similar effect on Chinese manufacturers of humanoid robots, Hu Debo believes.

 

The American carmaker first showed off Optimus in 2021. Elon Musk touted it as a potentially “bigger than the vehicle business” event in the future. 

 

Musk’s company is using an artificial intelligence approach for Optimus modeled on its “Full Self-Driving” software for electric vehicles.

 

Chinese rivals and analysts say Tesla has an early lead in artificial intelligence, but China has the potential to lower production costs.

 

When the robots enter factories at scale

 

Optimus, which was also unveiled at the Beijing conference, was outpaced by a number of Chinese humanoids that waved, walked and even shrugged. Still, it was one of the most popular exhibits, surrounded by people taking photos. “Next year, there will be over 1,000 of my countrymen in the factory,” a sign next to Optimus read. Tesla expects to move beyond prototypes and begin small-scale production of Optimus next year.

 

Chinese humanoid robot maker UBTECH Robotics is already testing its robots at factories of Geely and Audi cars. “Our goal is to start mass production by next year,” said Sotirios Stasinopoulos, a project manager at UBTECH. This would mean that up to a thousand robots would be working in car factories in China, Stasinopoulos claims.

 

However, according to analysts quoted by Reuters, it will be another 20 to 30 years before humanoid robots can achieve large-scale commercial use."