"The ultimate goal of humanoid robots is to enter the home at an affordable price, and strive for humanoid robots to be 'as smart as doctors and as cheap as home appliances'. A senior executive of a Shenzhen humanoid robot company told reporters.
He said that it is expected that by the end of next year at the latest, humanoid robot application scenarios in the vertical field will appear.
A number of industry insiders told reporters that the humanoid robot is ushering in a "singularity" moment, which obtains the "soul" from the AI large model, allows the AI algorithm to enter the real physical world, and trains in the production links such as automobiles and precision manufacturing to achieve "from 0 to 0.1" exploration.
Shenzhen Nanshan is standing at the "singularity" of humanoid robots. According to the "2023 Shenzhen Robot Industry Development White Paper", the total output value of Shenzhen's robot industry chain in 2023 will be 179.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%. Among them, Nanshan District has the highest output value of 35.01%, and it is also ahead of other districts in terms of the number of patents.
The company landed on the Hong Kong stock market at the end of last year, and was included in the Hang Seng Composite Index and the Hang Seng Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Greater Bay Area Composite Index in March this year, and entered the Hong Kong Stock Connect target.
The Walker S performs the task of manipulating soft objects
What supports UBTECH's humanoid intelligent robot is the foundation of Nanshan's artificial intelligence industry. At the top level, Nanshan is home to more than one-third of Shenzhen's AI companies, in the middle layer, there are unmanned, industrial robots, underwater robots and other enterprises, and at the bottom level, there are many supporting enterprises such as smart sensors and intelligent components.
01AI soul into "embodied intelligence" to promote the formation of new productivity in Nanshan
The new quality productive forces are the contemporary advanced productive forces that have been spawned by technological revolutionary breakthroughs. Invisible artificial intelligence algorithms, combined with tangible hardware, are forming a new productive force called "embodied intelligence" on the carrier of humanoid robots.
On March 18, NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang delivered a keynote speech at GTC 2024, titled "Witnessing the Transformative Moment of AI." "We're starting to do some really good work on the next generation of robotics," he said. The next generation of robots will be humanoid robots.
At the GTC conference, NVIDIA officially announced the GR00T project of the general robot, which can accept text, voice, video, and even understand natural language and simulated actions by observing human behavior and other multimodal states, and quickly learn to adapt to and interact with the real world.
2023 is known by many people in the industry as the year of the explosion of generative AI, and even the "year of robot awakening". Generative AI such as ChatGPT is combined with the humanoid robotics industry.
This combination is known as "Embodied Intelligence." In recent years, a number of domestic companies, including UBTECH, have released self-developed humanoid robots. Large models and humanoid robots are landing in Nanshan.
Artificial general intelligence is the "soul". On March 1, Nanshan District held a seminar on the high-quality development of the artificial intelligence industry for one day. The relevant person in charge of SenseTime Technology said that since the release of the "Ririxin SenseNova" large model system in April 2023, it has provided a precise focus for the realization of general artificial intelligence (AGI), helped the whole scene and multiple industries to achieve "large model +", and broadened the application boundary of large models.
The seminar suggested that Nanshan should be promoted to become a global AI investment highland through the establishment of an early fund of funds. In addition, Nanshan AI enterprises focus on the application layer, hoping to not only focus on the innovation of vertical large model technology, but also grasp the upgrading and iteration of hardware and solutions to AI.
The latter is Nanshan's industrial advantage.
Recently, Nanshan has publicly selected a number of benchmark intelligent robot application cases to actively promote the transformation of typical cases of "robot +" application action in Nanshan District. Including manufacturing, agriculture, construction, energy, trade and logistics, medical and health, elderly care services, education, business community services, safety emergency and extreme environment operations.
Previously, humanoid robots were an unpopular industry, and there were only a handful of companies in the market that claimed to be able to develop humanoid robots. At the end of 2023, in the second-generation demo video of Optimus released by Tesla, the robot has been able to handle eggs with care. Since the beginning of this year, Optimus has been able to fold clothes easily, and its flexibility and fluency have been greatly improved, which has brought humanoid robots to the hot spot in the market for a while.
Taking UBTECH's Walker series as an example, the first generation of Walker developed in 2018 can kick balls, dance, and go up and down stairs, mainly focusing on sports interaction functions at that time, the second generation added the two-arm perception function in 2019, and the third generation and the Walker S, which has just been unveiled now, let everyone see the robot's cognition and decision-making.
Thus, the cloud brain of the robot realizes the autonomous learning and evolutionary growth of the robot through multimodal AI and digital generation technologies, and completes the specific execution on the "end" side of the robot itself.
"Embodied intelligence is not only about bipedal robots, but also about the ability to understand the world, and form is just a carrier. Xu Huazhe, head of the Embodied Intelligence Laboratory of Tsinghua University, said.
Zhang Tao, CEO of Pudu Technology, believes that large language models can greatly improve the accuracy of robots' understanding of natural semantics through deep learning and big data training, making human-computer interaction more efficient. For example, it allows consumers to quickly find what they are looking for with simple instructions.
In 2023, Nanshan's "Implementation Plan for Accelerating the Full-time Innovative Application of Artificial Intelligence in Nanshan District" proposes to plan 3-5 super scene projects every year relying on major projects and activities such as Xili High-speed Railway Station, Kechuang Avenue, Shekou Ocean City, Nanshan Hospital, and Xili Lake Forum, to provide an innovative testing ground for the comprehensive application of artificial intelligence technology and products. Facing the three major fields of public service, urban governance and industry application, 10-20 benchmark demonstration scenarios with significant economic and social benefits and strong technology-driven are selected every year.
02Continue to cultivate industrial ecology and help robots "go to the sky" and "go to the sea"
In fact, the cultivation of new quality productivity requires continuous investment. Nanshan occupies the "Tianyuan" at the moment of the humanoid robot "singularity", and calmly "settles" the layout, relying on years of patience and dedication.
At the end of 2009, Zhou Jian, the founder of UBTECH, went south to Shenzhen and landed in Nanshan.
At first, the investment community was not optimistic about the humanoid robot track, so Zhou Jian took out his savings to invest in research. After 5 years, Zhou Jian and his team finally conquered the core component of the robot, the "servo drive".
In 2015, although the tax amount did not meet the standard, with the efforts of UBTECH and the relevant persons in charge of Nanshan Zhiyuan, UBTECH settled in Nanshan Zhiyuan. Since then, UBTECH's development has entered the fast lane. As of June 2023, UBTECH's full-stack technology has more than 1,800 patents related to robotics and artificial intelligence. In terms of the effective patent reserve of humanoid robots, UBTECH has ranked first in the world, higher than Honda, Sony, Toyota, etc. According to its prospectus, UBTECH has sold more than 760,000 robots, and the large humanoid robot Walker series has been successfully sold.
In addition to UBTECH, Nanshan's intelligent robot industry is showing a gushing state, going to the sky, going to the sea, and doing surgery, everything.
According to the survey report of China's top 500 private enterprises, in 2022, DJI, a leading drone company, will have an operating income of 30.1 billion yuan, ranking 459th among the top 500.
For example, Stealth Innovation, founded in 2016, has developed rapidly in the field of underwater robots, and has developed 6 generations of products, which are sold in more than 100 countries and regions. Yuanhua Intelligence's orthopedic robot has become the only open implant data total knee replacement surgery robot system approved for marketing in China.
At present, in the Pearl River Delta, the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Northeast, Central and Western six robot industry clusters, the Pearl River Delta region represented by Nanshan, Shenzhen has formed a system integration and provide solutions-based business characteristics, and from key components to the complete robot industry chain and applications.
The success of DJI and UBTECH in their respective fields of robotics has brought a lot of hope to the industry. The complete supply chain also allows the robot industry to gradually sprout and blossom in Nanshan District, Shenzhen.
Electronic information agglomeration is the industrial characteristics of Nanshan District, and the industry is rumored that "you can build a drone without leaving Nanshan District", and the output value of Nanshan District has reached more than 30 billion yuan.
The common parts needed by robots are the same, and Shenzhen is also a distribution center for integrated circuits and semiconductor trade, such as high-performance CPUs, sensors, and even gyroscopes, all of which can find suppliers or manufacturers locally.
Zhou Jian previously said, "Take the customization of a gear as an example, the production of enterprises that meet our requirements are everywhere in Shenzhen, and the production of various parts not only improves the efficiency by at least 50%, but also saves about 30% of the cost." ”
Under the guidance of the chain owner, to bring market enlightenment to the robot market, robot enterprises in Nanshan District, Shenzhen have emerged, and robots have been used to achieve the use of going to the sky, going to the ground, entering the water, and even "screwing into the factory".
Pan Yi, chief scientist of the Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that the track of the robot industry is becoming more and more detailed, and it should be so. "For example, they are all drones, but for different environments, the speed of driving, the collisions overcome, and the resistance encountered will be very different. ”
Shenzhen Daotong Intelligent Aviation Technology Co., Ltd., which now ranks second in the global market share of small UAVs, is one of them. Not only in the "C-end" rolled out of the sky, but also in security, inspection, emergency, surveying and mapping and other industrial fields.
In an interview with reporters, Li Hongjing, the founder of the company, said that from the technical side, the solutions for UAV applications in various industries are becoming more and more mature, driving more downstream customers to choose to use UAVs;
In Nanshan District, there is a group of entrepreneurs, aiming at the subdivision track, competing with DJI, UBTECH and other enterprises in a differentiated manner, and gradually emerging to the fore, and Zhou Changgen is one of them.
Originally, Zhou Changgen was aiming at aerial drones, but at the roadshow of the Nanshan District Digital Cultural Industry Base, the emergence of the concept of underwater robots gave Zhou Changgen the idea of adjusting the product plan.
With the efforts of Zhou Changgen, in 2017, through the exposure of the "Entrepreneurship Star" competition in Nanshan District, Sneak Innovation received its first financing.
Through independent research and development and design of technologies such as underwater propulsion, connectors, control systems and underwater hardware structures, the team has broken the original relatively traditional and closed underwater robot industry chain model, and improved the sneak innovative products into products closer to the consumer market.
来源 | 南方财经全媒体 记者 | 林典驰
编辑 | 王晴 责编 | 董非
Audit | Liang Yashu and Lu Dongbo
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