Editor: Editorial Department
UBTECH's listing can be called an important node in the commercialization process of humanoid robots. The year of the outbreak of large models has pressed the fast-forward button for the development of humanoid robots. Perhaps as soon as next year, we will successfully witness more and more commercial applications of humanoid robots!
Just today, UBTECH, the "first stock of humanoid robots", was officially listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange!
At the ceremony, the panda robot Youyou steadily walked onto the stage and handed the gong hammer to Zhou Jian.
On the other side, a new generation of industrial humanoid robot Walker S made its debut, holding another gong hammer to the center of the stage, and sounding the opening gong with Zhou Jian.
This is the first listing ceremony in human history to be struck by a humanoid robot, and it will also become a milestone event in the accelerated commercialization process of global humanoid robots, which will go down in the history of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
In the morning of the same day, UBTECH (stock code: 9880. HK) share price is as high as HK$91, and the market capitalization is as high as about HK$38 billion.
From 2020 to the first half of 2023, UBTECH's total operating revenue reached RMB2.83 billion, and its total R&D investment amounted to RMB1.598 billion. As of December 10, 2023, UBTECH has sold more than 760,000 robots.
What is touching is that behind becoming the "first stock of humanoid robots" is UBTECH's 11 years of persistence - as early as 2012, UBTECH firmly chose the road of humanoid robots, and finally caught up with the humanoid robot market in 2023.
Since last year, the popularity of humanoid robot concept stocks has risen, Musk has entered the game with a high profile, ChatGPT has detonated the public's enthusiasm for general artificial intelligence terminals, Huawei, Xiaomi, Amazon, and Samsung have all run to enter the market, and the industry is constantly good.
In addition, humanoid robots have been tilted by the national strategy, and UBTECH has become a "national team" of humanoid robots. In the guidance issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in October, it was clearly pointed out that humanoid robots are disruptive products after computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles.
It can be said that the humanoid robot industry is now in full swing and has become the focus of competition among countries, and it is at the breaking point of time, place, and people.
UBTECH, which has been deeply cultivated in the industry for 11 years, has finally been listed and has become the first share of humanoid robots, which has given great encouragement to the entire industry and is undoubtedly of far-reaching significance.
With UBTECH's listing as a landmark event, the global humanoid robot industry will usher in a new development node. We can boldly hope that the day when humanoid robots will enter our lives is not far away.
The general trend of commercialization of humanoid robots
The reason why humanoid robots are made into human shapes is because "humanoid" is the most suitable form for all scenarios of human society, and there is no need to change the scene to adapt to the machine, once the technology is mature, it can be directly used in all social scenarios, and the body language of "humanoid" is also the most in line with human cognition.
At the 2023 World Robot Conference, Zhou Jian, the founder of UBTECH, clearly pointed out the three major application scenarios of humanoid robots - industrial manufacturing, commercial services and home companionship, which is also a general trend in the industry.
Industrial sector
The industrial field has become the first field for manufacturers to try. The reason is that the scenarios of intelligent manufacturing and robotics are naturally compatible.
In the industrial field, UBTECH has made a variety of attempts and layouts.
At present, UBTECH's humanoid robot Walker X has been trained and tested in smart factories, mainly for SPS intelligent sorting and aging testing.
It can be "embedded" into the high-repetitive, low-load production process through linkage with unmanned handling robot AGV, thereby improving the efficiency and flexibility of the factory.
In 2023, UBTECH will specially develop the humanoid robot Walker S for industrial applications, and cooperate with a number of leading new energy vehicle companies.
In June, UBTECH established a joint venture with Tianqi Co., Ltd., a new energy vehicle manufacturing supply chain company, focusing on the R&D, manufacturing and overall solutions of humanoid robots used in the automotive field.
This cooperation also makes UBTECH the only humanoid robot company that does not make its own cars but participates in car building, and the ecological cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles will be wider and deeper, and may even eat the first wave of dividends of intelligent new energy vehicle manufacturing.
Zhou Jian mentioned that UBTECH has a full plan for the landing of humanoid robots in the manufacturing scene, which is divided into three stages.
In the first phase (2023-2024), the new energy vehicle manufacturing scenario will be used as the starting point to realize the testing of humanoid robots in industrial scenarios such as handling and coatings.
In the second phase (2025-2027), it will gradually expand to medium-difficulty tasks, and focus on creating applications in 3-5 special scenarios, gradually achieve large-scale commercialization, and horizontally expand to consumer electronics manufacturing and other industries.
In the third stage (2028-2033), it will be further expanded to more complex task scenarios with more than 10+ skills, making UBTECH humanoid robots multi-task general-purpose industrial humanoid robots.
Tesla's layout for humanoid robots is to first produce them in the factory for their own use, and then expand to general-purpose service robots.
At the "Tesla AI Day" in 22, Optimus Prime made his debut and showed his skills in the factory - moving boxes.
According to Musk's vision, Optimus Prime can replace humans to complete repetitive work and dangerous operations.
In the future, Optimus Prime will take over the entire automotive production field to achieve truly unmanned production.
After Tesla's factory completes industrial-level operations such as mobile handling and parts assembly, Optimus Prime will expand to more complex links such as the home and become a general-purpose service robot.
Xiaomi, another domestic company that lays out humanoid robots, has also explored the layout in the industrial field.
Last year, Xiaomi released the humanoid robot CyberOne (Tieda).
At present, Xiaomi is actively promoting the phased implementation of humanoid robots in its own manufacturing system.
In the short term, it will take root in a certain scenario and develop prototypes, and in the medium term, it will integrate multiple scenarios of Xiaomi manufacturing and intelligent manufacturing to do industrial verification, and realize data accumulation and model iteration.
In the long run, Xiaomi hopes to expand the application of robots beyond 3C and automobile manufacturing scenarios, forming a 7:2:1 "golden rule" (70% of the work is done by automated equipment, 20% by humanoid robots, and the remaining 10% by humans).
In Yizhuang, Beijing, Xiaomi will build a general humanoid robot innovation demonstration project to develop mass-produced commercial products of general-purpose humanoid robots.
In addition to overcoming a series of key technologies and core software and hardware components, building a simulation verification and strong chemical Xi training platform, it will also carry out innovative applications for typical manufacturing scenarios such as 3C factories and automobile factories, and accelerate the construction of a general humanoid robot industry ecology.
Business Services
In addition, in the field of commercial services, UBTECH has taken the lead in commercialization.
The opening of commercial services means that humanoid robots can be applied in a wide range of different scenarios, and at the same time, they can also feed back their own development.
At present, the first batch of UBTECH humanoid robots Walker X has landed in NEOM New Future City in Saudi Arabia, becoming the first generation of large-scale humanoid robots "citizens" to provide intelligent services for people. In the China Pavilion of Expo 2020 Dubai, UBTECH Walker X and Panda Robot Youyou have also achieved service implementation.
In different science and technology exhibition halls, UBTECH's large-scale humanoid robots are also taking on the functions of guided explanations and performances to promote AI and robot science education.
The biggest premise for the commercial landing of humanoid robots is that the technical strength is absolutely hard enough.
There is no doubt that UBTECH has been deeply engaged in the field of humanoid robot technology for 11 years, and its self-developed full-stack technology ranks "first in the world", providing important support for the implementation of humanoid robots.
Since its establishment in 2012, UBTECH has continued to invest in research and development in the core technology of humanoid robots.
Data shows that from 2020 to the first half of 2023, the average R&D expenditure accounted for more than 50% of annual revenue.
From robot motion planning and control, servo drives, computer vision and voice interaction, SLAM and autonomous navigation technology, visual servo operation and human-computer interaction, to industry-leading "full-stack technologies" such as ROSA, the application framework of robot operating system, UBTECH has launched its layout.
In addition, in the "Humanoid Robot Technology Patent Analysis Report" released by the People's Daily Online Research Institute, UBTECH is the enterprise with the largest number of valid humanoid robot technology patents in the world.
As of June 30, 2023, UBTECH's full-stack technology has more than 1,800 patents related to robotics and artificial intelligence, of which more than 900 are invention patents and more than 380 are overseas patents.
Family Services
The last field, the home service field, is the most potential landing scenario for humanoid robots.
However, for the application of humanoid robots in home scenarios, UBTECH CEO Zhou Jian believes that this will be a longer-term goal, which is expected to be taken in two steps.
The first step is the application of the "companion function".
Although robots are not able to replace human care or even pet companionship, it can play a role in filling the gaps.
The companion robot can not only alleviate the loneliness of the elderly and children, but also integrate functions such as safety care, Xi help, and entertainment with the needs of different scenarios.
After accompanying the application landing, the second step is the landing of the "service function".
Now humanoid robots have the ability to understand and decompose complex tasks and finally plan and execute, and once there is a breakthrough in locomotor ability, they will enter this stage.
At the same time, UBTECH will also apply the full-stack technology of humanoid robots to business modules such as artificial intelligence education, smart logistics, smart health care, commercial services, and consumer business.
The fields that are favored by Silicon Valley Iron Man are expected to usher in more landing cases
Humanoid robots have now become a hot direction in the industry.
As mentioned above, humanoid robots have long been a field that is greatly favored by Musk, the "Iron Man of Silicon Valley".
At Tesla's 2023 shareholder meeting, Musk said: Humanoid robots are a market with more development potential than electric vehicles. If the ratio of humanoid robots to humans in the future is 2, it means that the demand for humanoid robots is as high as 20 billion units.
In fact, Tesla's humanoid robot has firmly attracted the attention of the industry and capital since its birth, and each update will drive the stock price of listed companies in China's robot industry chain to rise and fall.
Now, Musk has made a big bet on humanoid robots, and according to his predictions, the cost of Optimus Prime after mass production is even lower than that of a car, and the price may be as low as $25,000.
In the future, Tesla's long-term value will be the humanoid robot Optimus Prime.
Similarly, Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2035, under the blue ocean market scenario, the humanoid robot market can reach a scale of $154 billion, close to 1/3 of the global electric vehicle market and the global smartphone market in 2022.
In the face of huge market prospects, many technology giants and startups have begun to lay out in this track, betting on the large-scale commercial application of humanoid robots.
In May, OpenAI led an investment in Norwegian humanoid robot startup 1x. The company's goal is to build humanoid robots that are safe and work with humans.
In addition, in the Amazon warehouse, Digit, a humanoid bipedal robot developed and designed by Agility Robotics, has officially taken office in October this year.
Digit's current operating costs are about $10-$12 per hour, and the company estimates that it will be able to earn as little as $2-$3 an hour in the future.
U.S. startup Figure also released a video in October showing the humanoid robot Figure 01 for the first time.
It was designed to create a universal humanoid robot that could be used from warehousing to retail.
Brett Adcock, the founder of Figure, recently lamented that "the development curve of AI and robotics hardware has changed".
In the last 90 days, I've seen firsthand in the lab the industry's most advanced AI in action on humanoid robot hardware, and frankly, I've been shocked. I've observed that robots rely entirely on neural networks to perform complex tasks that I thought would not be possible until the end of this decade.
It can be seen that foreign technology companies have fully opened various attempts of humanoid robots and are making efforts in the direction of the "last mile".
It can be said that the "iPhone moment" of humanoid robots has arrived.
In China, in addition to UBTECH and Xiaomi, companies such as Zhiyuan Technology and Unitree Technology have all handed over impressive answers in the field of humanoid robots.
In August, there was a major outbreak of humanoid robots in China in just a few days.
Unitree Technology released the first full-size general-purpose humanoid robot "H1" that can run in China.
低于9万美元的售价，让OpenAI创始人Karpathy都惊呼好想要。
The maximum torque of the H1's knee motor is 360 N.m, the hip is about 220 N.m, and the ankle is about 45 N.m. This gives the H1 "the world's highest approximate power performance".
And just two days later, Zhihuijun also ushered in his entrepreneurial debut, and Zhiyuan's humanoid robot "Expedition A1" stepped onto the stage and stood firmly in the C position.
The self-developed core joint - PowerFlow joint motor and the design of the "dexterous hand" have all impressed the industry.
It can be seen that the development of AGI this year has injected new power into humanoid robots, and embodied intelligence has become a new hot spot in the AI circle. It can be seen that for the entire industry, the development process has pressed the fast-forward button.
On the eve of the acceleration of the industry, UBTECH's listing has laid a strong shot in the arm for various companies of humanoid robots.
At the beginning of UBTECH's establishment, not everyone could understand the company's insistence on humanoid robots. But after 11 years of perseverance, we finally saw the rewards, which will bring more entrepreneurs the determination to deepen the humanoid robot industry.
In the future, what factors will further accelerate the implementation of humanoid robots?
More mature AI technology
On December 13, the video of the new upgrade of Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot attracted the attention of the whole network.
Compared to the previous generation, Optimus Gen-2 has become significantly more intelligent.
For example, you can pick up an egg with your fingers and perform delicate manipulation of objects with your nimble hands. Walking characteristics are similar to those of humans, walking speed suggests 30%, and so on.
Since its debut at Tesla's AI Day in 2021, Tesla's humanoid robots have gradually completed multiple iterations and upgrades.
As of May of this year, Optimus was able to handle complex tasks with both hands and walk smoothly.
In September, Optimus implemented autonomous classification of objects, and its neural network is the same as FSD, using end-to-end training, that is, input video, output action.
Although there is controversy in the industry about the progress schedule of Optimus, the market is generally optimistic that the humanoid robot will be implemented in the past two years.
And it is precisely because of the ability of large models that it has become an important catalyst to promote AI embodied intelligence.
At the ITFWorld 2023 semiconductor conference, Huang proposed that embodied intelligence will lead the next wave of artificial intelligence, that is, intelligent systems that can interact with the environment like humans, and independently plan, make decisions, and act will be the ultimate form of AI.
This year, the most typical representative research includes the proposal of Eureka and other institutions by Nvidia and other institutions.
It is a GPT-4-powered reward design algorithm that takes full advantage of GPT-4's excellent zero-shot generation, code generation, and contextual Xi capabilities, and the resulting rewards can be used to enable robots to acquire complex specific skills through intensive chemical Xi.
For example, Eureka can teach complex skills such as manipulator tricks and pen turning, and can reach the same level of ability as a human.
In addition, Google's DeepMind team has also proposed a "Vision-Language-Motion" (VLA) model and applied it to the RT-2 robot.
In this way, RT-2 can learn Xi from the data of the network and robots, and can also autonomously convert this knowledge into effective instructions.
Coincidentally, UBTECH also started an attempt to integrate large model capabilities into humanoid robots.
At the 2023 World Robot Conference, UBTECH officially announced the self-developed "Intelligent Multimodal Interaction System for Humanoid Robots". This system integrates UBTECH's nearly 12 years of R&D accumulation in the field of humanoid robots, such as perception, natural language understanding, positioning and navigation, motion control and other technical capabilities.
At present, the UBT team has also built an Agent intelligent simulation system UNDERS2 based on the "multi-modal embodied intelligent system for humanoid robots", UBT Next Digital Self-Learning Xi Robot Simulation System, UBT Next Digital Educated Robot Simulation System), using a large amount of robot data accumulated in the past, the team received multi-modal information from different sensors to train UBTECH's large business model, and took the real actions of the robot in the actual scene as the goal, combined the idea of strengthening chemical Xi and the semantics of human feedback in the training process, realized the "human loop", so as to fine-tuning the model.
At present, the UNDERS2 intelligent simulation system can be efficiently combined with the existing functions of humanoid robots, which greatly accelerates the realization of embodied intelligence, especially in industrial scenarios. For example, with the help of this intelligent system, the humanoid robot can build a semantic map based on the perception information in industrial scenarios, accurately judge the working environment, and combine with the related products of UBTECH's smart logistics business to efficiently and accurately complete various tasks in industrial scenarios.
The technical research of humanoid robots is the core, but another important factor to promote its rapid development is also inseparable from the support of policies.
Policy support
At present, humanoid robots have become the focus of industrial competition in various countries in the world under the background of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, and its strategic importance has emerged.
Since 2023, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has launched a series of policies that have pointed out the path for the mainland to develop humanoid robots in the coming years.
In September, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Notice on Organizing and Carrying out the Unveiling of Future Industrial Innovation Tasks in 2023", which put forward specific goals for 2025 in four key directions such as humanoid robots, clarified the key points and application scenarios of humanoid robots, and is expected to accelerate the industrialization of humanoid robots.
In October, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots", which made a comprehensive and clear strategic planning and deployment for the development of humanoid robots in the form of a separate document for the first time.
The opinions pointed out that humanoid robots integrating advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and new materials are expected to become subversive products after computers, smart phones, and new energy vehicles, which will profoundly change human production and lifestyle, and reshape the global industrial development pattern.
On November 2, Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Co., Ltd. was formally established in the Robot Innovation Industrial Park of the Economic Development Zone, and plans to carry out five key tasks, including the prototype of the general humanoid robot ontology and the general large model of the humanoid robot.
This is the first provincial-level humanoid robot innovation center in China, which is jointly held by Beijing Xiaomi Robot Technology Co., Ltd., Beijing UBTECH Intelligent Robot Co., Ltd., and Beijing Jingcheng Electromechanical Industry Investment Co., Ltd., and the legal representative is UBTECH CTO Xiong Youjun.
Obviously, as one of the members of the "national team" of humanoid robots, UBTECH is expected to gain more development opportunities in terms of technical breakthrough and application expansion.
Nowadays, many investors have supported UBTECH, which also demonstrates the confidence of the market.
In addition to state-owned shareholdings, investors also include well-known venture capital institutions such as Qiming Venture Capital and CDH Investments, as well as leading enterprises such as Tencent and iFLYTEK, as well as financial groups such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.
Back when the company was founded in 2012, many people thought that the application of humanoid robots was out of reach.
Xia Zuoquan, co-founder of BYD, chairman of Zhengxuan Investment, and director of UBTECH, saw the prospect of humanoid robot applications at that time, and began to bet on this robot company.
He said that his view of humanoid robots has gradually changed from investing to the present.
At the beginning of the investment, the concept of humanoid robots in commercialization was relatively vague, including how to land, application scenarios, etc., but he only thought that this general trend was right at the time.
With the passage of time, the trend of commercial landing and application scenarios of humanoid robots has become more obvious.
At that time, there were three main logics for investing in UBTECH: first, the judgment of the general trend of the application of artificial intelligence and communication technology in our lives, and the feeling that this general trend may be about to appear. The second is the recognition and judgment of the entrepreneurial spirit of Zhou Jian and the team he leads, including courage and courage. Third, because I have worked in the industrial field for many years, I think that at that time, artificial intelligence actually had some applications in the industrial field, especially in the automotive field. Therefore, I judge that there will be more applications of artificial intelligence in life and business.
It is also for this reason that Xia Zuoquan invested in UBTECH as an angel investor and held it firmly for 11 years.
For UBTECH's "first share of humanoid robots", he explained it like this-
Although UBTECH is not the first to make humanoid robots, it is the first to do its core technology and industrialization.
Moreover, it not only achieved the first, but also adhered to the concept of persistence, and at the same time, the commercial application also has a certain scale.
It is true that there are some companies in Japan and the United States that are doing this direction, but they have not adhered to it. Compared with Musk, UBTECH also made efforts earlier on the track of humanoid robots.
In his speech at the listing ceremony, Zhou Jian mentioned:
UBTECH adheres to the vision of "bringing intelligent robots into thousands of households" at the beginning of its establishment, and has gradually developed into a leader in humanoid robots and a leading enterprise in intelligent service robots after more than ten years.
After 11 years of persistence and commercial application, UBTECH has the confidence to enter the capital market and become the "first stock of humanoid robots".
Today, the trend of humanoid robots is fully apparent. Looking to the future, the future of humanoid robot applications in the commercialization scenarios of education, entertainment, industry, elderly care and consumption is promising.
At the end of 2023, UBTECH's official listing opened an era of accelerated commercialization of humanoid robots.
I believe that soon, we will see more cases of humanoid robots.