The biggest highlight of this AI day comes from Tesla's first humanoid machine prototype, Optimus Optimus, or in order to highlight the weight, Tesla has put its display in the first part.
"Optimus Prime" debuted on
Tesla first showed Optimus Prime moving boxes, watering plants, moving metal rods and other operations in a car factory.
Then, Tesla CEO Elon Musk showed the version of the "Optimus Prime" robot ready to be put into production. He said, "The goal is to create humanoid robots that are useful to humans as soon as possible."
Musk revealed that the future production of humanoid robot Optimus Optimus can reach millions of units, with an estimated price of less than 20,000 US dollars (about 142,300 yuan), which is cheaper than cars. At the meeting, Tesla showed different versions of the research and development process of "Optimus Prime" humanoid robot. Tesla engineers said they are working to reduce the power consumption and parts of Optimus Prime robots. The head of
Optimus is equipped with a sensor array such as the same camera as Tesla car . The computing power is provided by the FSD (Full Self-driving) chip. It also shares the AI system with the car, and uses the training mechanism of the Dojo supercomputer to improve the functions of the robot.
Musk revealed that since then, as production scale expands and costs decrease, the practicality of humanoid robots will increase year by year. In the future, a home robot may be cheaper than a car, "maybe in less than ten years, people can buy a robot for their parents as a birthday gift."
0 billion market still needs to cross four "mountains"
Under the trend of " machine replacement ", the robot industry has a broad market space. Minsheng Securities predicts that the humanoid robot market size will reach 63 billion yuan by 2025 and 372 billion yuan by 2030.
However, in the 100 billion market of humanoid robots, there are only a handful of domestic players. Currently, there is only one company, UBL Technology. Internationally, it is represented by Nao and Pepper developed by SoftBank, Boston Dynamics and Honda ASIMO.
As a service product, humanoid robots ultimately need to be applied in combination with scenarios. However, it can be seen that compared with robots such as home cleaning, food delivery, and logistics, it is still difficult for current humanoid robots to see more mature application.
Li Zhe, chief researcher of the machinery industry of Minsheng Securities, previously said in an interview with a reporter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that humanoid robots are a system project, such as motion balance and intelligence level, which can affect the whole body with one move. The overall difficulty is the highest, so there are not many companies entering. From the perspective of industrial process, overall, the technical level of global humanoid robots is still in a relatively low and not very practical.
UBLIC Technology CTO Xiong Youjun also expressed the same view to the reporter of Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, "The humanoid robot industry is still in a relatively early stage of development." He believes that there are four "mountains" that lie on the road to large-scale commercialization of humanoid robots.
"From the cost side, humanoid robots were often sold for millions of dollars in the past, because to achieve free movement and complete complex tasks in the non-structural environment of human life, the flexibility of humanoid robots is higher, which requires more complex structures, etc.," Xiong Youjun told reporters that for example, servo drives will occupy more than half of the cost of the whole machine. Although with the joint efforts of relevant robot companies, the cost of core components of humanoid robots has been steadily declining, there is still a long way to go to make "intelligent robots enter thousands of households".
Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun also admitted at the autumn new product launch conference in August that in the field of intelligent robots, humanoid bionic robots have the highest technical integration and the greatest difficulty.
From a technical perspective, "humanoid robots are a complex technology that requires long-term investment. In the early stage of low commercialization, if you want to build a humanoid robot, it means that the company must have the R&D capabilities of a series of core technologies," Xiong Youjun told reporters, such as servo drives, mechanical transmission, motion planning and control, computer vision and perception, intelligent voice interaction, SLAM and navigation, human-computer interaction and hand-eye coordination and other core technologies. Technology research and development is also an aspect that UBY Technology has been investing heavily.
In addition, Xiong Youjun also mentioned that on the financial side, the investment in early research and development of humanoid robots is huge. On the talent side, two years ago, the gap in talent related to artificial intelligence and robots reached 5 million. It is expected that this number will further increase in the next few years. The development of the humanoid robot industry as a whole is subject to talent shortage.
industry turning point is approaching, software ecology becomes the key
Before Tesla, Xiaomi first released its first full-size humanoid bionic robot - "CyberOne". The market was once excited by it. In A-share , humanoid robots have also become a popular concept. The related concept stock has already been "hot".
Companies in the industrial chain, such as the leader in reducers, Dalide, recorded 8 daily limit increases in half a month and set a record high, with the largest increase in stock prices in the past two months exceeding 260%. The stock price of Mingzhi Electrical Appliances , which has been on the 6 consecutive boards, has increased by more than 200% in two months, and the largest increase of Greenland Harmonics has exceeded 170% since June. Eston , Hechuan Technology, Hanyu Group, Julun Intelligence and other related concept stocks have performed well.
Li Zhe previously said in an interview with a reporter from the Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily that humanoid robots have a more general application scenario than industrial robots, because their humanoid shapes are easier to accept, and may break the barriers of factories, commercial and households and become a truly universal product; secondly, they can be used as a natural commercial entrance, and then many commercial values will be reflected from humanoid robots.
From the perspective of the industrial chain, Xiong Youjun believes that the Tesla effect will bring new vitality to the domestic humanoid robot industry chain. This not only means incremental component orders, but also means the entry of more talents and funds, and also means the approaching of the industry turning point. "From the past development laws of smartphones and smart cars, the sign of the maturity of a smart terminal industry is the formation of a perfect ecosystem of hardware, software, content and services."
Xiong Youjun analyzed that the hardware ecosystem of the domestic humanoid robot industry has been formed, and Chinese companies have played an important role in sensors, chips, servo drivers, reducers and even controllers. The scale effect brought about by Tesla and more companies involved in the humanoid robot industry will be likely to greatly promote the development of upstream and downstream industrial chains, and Chinese companies will also benefit from the links that already occupy the core technology advantages.
But compared with relatively mature hardware, "the software ecosystem of humanoid robots is still in the process of forming." Xiong Youjun said that only when the number of products and the number of users reach a certain base can the software ecosystem have the soil for prosperity and development. If new products can effectively meet more needs, it is foreseeable that it will lay a solid foundation for the prosperity of the software ecosystem.
( Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily)
