For the next generation of intelligent interactive hardware represented by Tesla robots, Essence Securities sorted out the 9 most important AI parts of humanoid robots.
Essence Securities believes that the market's reaction to the "humanoid robot" market - the core part of AI is what foreign companies are good at, while domestic companies are good at supporting high-end manufacturing industry chains. At the same time, investors are reminded to pay attention to the future computing platform based on The new hardware will be fundamentally different from smartphones and previous interactive hardware:
2) AI will become more important;
3) will have an unprecedented range of entrants (XR manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers, smart car manufacturers, game consoles; ; TV manufacturers, chip giants, AI giants, other sub-industry giants with ambitions, start-up companies, etc.);
4) It is completely different from the global era of the smartphone era ten years ago, and globalization is giving way. In the " national unified market ".
The following is the latest view of Essence Securities:
Basic information about Tesla humanoid robots:
1) In Musk’s interview in April, Tesla has seen the “flattening period” of the logarithmic curve in the future, and the robot is “powerful”. "Tianzhu" is the next generation of new hardware.
2) What Tesla now has is the "ability to expand production scale" and this year it can break through or solve "real-world AI problems" (the premise of this realization is "solving complex visual systems"). After these two things, only Special actuators and sensors need to be designed to drive humanoid robots.
3) The essence of "New Hardwareism" is the independent productization of AI, including input, computing platform, and output. In the robot "Optimus Prime", the input is "the complex visual system solved by the camera", the computing platform is "AI solving the real world", and the output is the "actuators and sensors" that Musk will solve in the future.
4) "This is more significant than cars." The "this" in it is new hardware, an independent product, and new intelligent interactive hardware with AI external display.
About the most important AI part of humanoid robots:
1) A high-quality unified vector space has been established
2) 8 cameras are tied together to shoot surround images, adding the time dimension to generate surround stereoscopic videos
3) The surround videos must be automatically marked, Tesla wrote its own labeling tool, creating an automatic labeling system; the human labels are just assistive, making slight modifications to the already generated video labels, and then feeding those modifications back to future order labelers; ultimately you get a "Flywheel", where car tags can receive a large amount of video, and automatically label video cars, lane lines, and driving spaces with high precision
4) requires storage of time and space. The storage cannot be unlimited and will consume a lot of memory
5) Computer (AI, camera) replaces humans (brain, eyes), and actually solves real-world AI and vision problems
6) According to Tesla’s capabilities in driverless driving (autonomous driving, large-scale production), category For human robot , Tesla only needs to design special drivers and sensors needed for humanoid robots
7) In terms of safety facilities, a localized ROM chip needs to be installed on the new hardware, and it cannot be updated online
8) Set up artificial intelligence Smart regulatory agency, which is important for public safety
9) The risk of robots is that artificial intelligence or digital superintelligence is decoupled from the collective will of humans
For the next generation of intelligent interactive hardware represented by Tesla robots, it is different from market perception : We believe that as Tesla's "second curve", it is essentially the same as Tesla's smart electric car. They are both intelligent interactive hardware based on the "input-computing platform-output" model.
We put forward the views and opinions of the three dimensions of "point, line, and surface": is based on "points", smart trams and humanoid robots both use "real-world AI; cameras (silicon neural networks; complex vision) System)" to simulate the human "brain; eyes (neural network; vision problem)"; on the "logic line of input - computing platform - output", Tesla has seen the future logarithmic curve of smart electric vehicles During the "lull period", the robot "Optimus Prime" is the next generation of new hardware; at the "cognitive level based on real operation", the characteristics of future interactive hardware are "integration of software and hardware", "integration into one (AI), The difficulty lies in solving the problem of "global (non-local) intelligence in the real world, that is, AI".
We understand the market's reaction to the market for "humanoid robots" - AI is the core area that foreign companies are good at, while domestic companies are good at supporting high-end manufacturing industry chains. However, we remind investors to pay attention to the future computing platform-based The new hardware will be fundamentally different from smartphones and previous interactive hardware: 1) The integration of software and hardware will be the general trend (the competition threshold has increased significantly, and software and hardware algorithms will be highly integrated into one company's model); 2) The importance of AI 3) There will be an unprecedented range of entrants (XR manufacturers, mobile phone manufacturers, smart car manufacturers, game consoles; TV manufacturers, chip giants, AI giants, other subdivided industry giants and start-up companies with ambitions) etc.); 4) It is completely different from the global era of the smartphone era ten years ago. Globalization is giving way to the "national unified market." Therefore, only prefers the intelligent manufacturing links of the hardware industry chain. Under the general trend of this round of new hardware, there are major logical flaws.
computer
Xia Yingtao
Tesla humanoid robot "Optimus Prime" will use Tesla's most advanced AI technology. Its head is equipped with the same intelligent driving camera as Tesla car , with built-in FSD chip and based on The visual neural network system’s predictive capabilities are driven by autonomous driving technology and share the AI system with the car. The brain of "Optimus Prime" uses the DOJOD1 supercomputer chip with extremely powerful computing power. Each D1 chip is seamlessly connected. The delay between adjacent chips is extremely low. The training module achieves maximum bandwidth retention.
Mechanical
Guo Qianqian
For the understanding and research of Tesla pedestrian robots, first of all, let’s sort out the timeline of the emergence of Tesla pedestrian robots:
①On August 19, 2021 (Tesla’s first AIDAY), the humanoid robot " Optimus Prime" made its debut, and although there were only some concept images and videos of the project, it still attracted a lot of attention.
② On June 3, 2022, Musk announced on Twitter that Tesla may launch a functioning humanoid robot prototype in the next few months.
③On June 21, 2022, Musk said in an interview at the Qatar Economic Forum that the humanoid robot TeslaBot "Optimus (Optimus)" prototype will be launched on September 30 this year (Tesla's second AIDAY) Show up. (TSL holds this type of AI Day event to emphasize that Tesla is not just a car company, but a leading AI company in the real world)
④ is expected to be put into production in 2023. The Optimus Prime project quickly rose in priority within Tesla. Musk previously said that in 2022, the product development of "Optimus Prime" will take priority over some of Tesla's upcoming models , and the first version of the robot is expected to be put into production in 2023. According to Musk's previous interview, if "Optimus Prime" can be mass-produced in the next two years, its cost will be lower than that of a car due to scale effects, and it is expected to sell for US$25,000 (approximately 168,000 yuan).
According to this timeline, the Tesla robot is a product of the past year. It is a new thing. It has been fermenting in the market in the past week and has attracted the attention of many investors. According to Tesla's philosophy of building cars: software depends on overseas, hardware depends on domestic industrial chain, analogy: the soul of the robot (AI) depends on overseas, the body of the robot (industrial chain) relies on China, the reducer , machine in the industrial chain Vision, sensors, etc. have all received everyone’s attention.The entire manufacturing process of the
robot is a small industrial control system, including the control layer, drive layer, execution layer and sensing layer. Different levels have different functions and use different parts. In the cost structure of industrial robots, deceleration The controller, servo motor , and controller account for 35%, 20%, and 15% respectively, and the total accounts for about 70%.
Electronics
Ma Liang
From the perspective of the supply chain, a large part of the component supply chain for humanoid robots will come from the supply chain of consumer electronics and automobiles. The reliability will most likely be higher than that of consumer electronics but lower than that of automobiles. There will also be some unique requirements, such as heat dissipation and special-shaped components, which will also be different.
At present, the most obvious thing is the perception link of robots, which is equivalent to human eyes and ears, so the demand from optical companies is very obvious, involving listed companies Weir Co., Ltd., Lianchuang Electronics, Sunny Optical Technology, etc.; in addition to the core CPU In addition, storage and MCU chips will also be used, involving listed companies: GigaDevice Beijing Ingenic; considering human voice interaction, acoustic components will also be involved, involving companies such as Goertek Acoustics ; for example, due to Most of them are special-shaped parts, so the proportion of precision structural parts will also increase. Companies related to precision processing include: Luxshare Precision , Anjie Technology, Changying Precision , etc.
Note: Please refer to our outsourced company reports for the above related companies
Communications
Zhang Zhenzhen
Humanoid robots are essentially the same as Tesla smart trams. They are models of input computing platforms and output intelligent interactive hardware. Smart trams, VR/AR and Humanoid robots have a progressive relationship from a research level. (1) There are essential differences between new hardware and interactive hardware in the future. At present, the integration of software and hardware is the general trend, and the requirements are very high. (2) The industrial chain is becoming more and more divergent, and the country needs to explore its own path.
Communication: Report on companies that have been engaged in robots for a long time in the industry
1, ZTE : Robot business started in 2019 (1) Self-propelled robots replace manual positioning at ports and can solve power problems. (2) Industrial robots (3) Safety inspection intelligent robots, used for community monitoring and image video. The company has clearly put forward the second growth, attaching great importance to machine vision. It has a self-developed machine vision platform that utilizes cloud computing and virtualization platforms. It relies on the Internet of Things and big data technology and has been put into commercial use. It has an intelligent 5G production base in Nanjing, which is mainly used for industrial quality inspection of QR codes and text recognition robots for inspection and maintenance. The robot business fits the company's second growth curve in the future. The company has proposed to enter the world's top 500 companies by 2025. It has already established relatively close cooperation with a number of leading OEMs. It is recommended that everyone pay attention to products like ZTE. Hard technology leaders such as communications.
2. There are many sensors and IoT modules in current robots. The intelligent vision of humanoid robots uses high-precision lidar , which is far more than automotive lidar. It is recommended to pay attention to these subdivided sectors such as sensor IoT modules and lidar.
Note: For the views of ZTE Corporation , please refer to our published reports
Media
Jiao Juan
Media The Internet recommended target is Baidu Group: We value the AI accumulation and strength of Baidu most, with AI as the core, Supplemented by its deep development in the field of autonomous driving, we believe that Baidu’s new hardware will be more than just smart cars and VR in the future.
[Essence Securities] Tesla humanoid robot-related targets
It is recommended to pay attention to the targets of the following industries:
Computer: 1) Artificial intelligence algorithm: SenseTime, iFlytek , ArcSoft Technology, Yuncong Technology, Megvii Technology , Green Shenpu; 2) Artificial intelligence chip: Cambrian , Haiguang Information;
machinery related industry chain company: 1) Servo system: Huichuan Technology , Hechuan Technology, INVT, Xinjie Electric ; 2) Machine vision: OPT, JJ Technology; 3) Reducer: Green Harmonic, Guomao Co., Ltd., double-ring transmission ; 4) Precision motor: Jiechang Drive, MOONS Electric ;
Electronics : Lianchuang Electronics, Beijing Junzheng, Changying Precision, Goertek;
Communications: 1) ZTE; 2) Move to Communications;
Media Internet: Baidu Group.
This article comes from
of Financial Associated Press
