Huawei's talented young man Zhihui Jun is back! Can the "Wild Iron Man" take over the robot world?

Speaking of KOLs in the technology circle, the “male god of science and engineering people”, Zhihuijun must be mentioned!

At the end of last year, Zhihuijun gave up his million-dollar annual salary and left Huawei, preparing to start a new career and do "big things". Recently, he officially announced that he will officially release his new work, the Expedition A1 intelligent robot, at 10:10 am on August 18 (this Friday) .

The result of the boss and his team's half-year hard work is about to be released, and netizens from all walks of life are quickly watching and responding. As of press time, the number of people who have made reservations for the B-War press conference live has reached 21,000. Some netizens even said: They have prepared cushions to prevent their knees from getting deformed after watching!

01 The amazing resume of a “genius boy”

A rookie who made it to Huawei

Zhihuijun, whose real name is Peng Zhihui, was born in 1993. After graduating from the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China with a bachelor's and master's degree, he joined the AI ​​Laboratory of OPPO Research Institute as an algorithm engineer. In 2020, Zhihuijun passed 7 rounds of interviews and was selected as Huawei's "genius boy", becoming a Huawei Ascend AI edge computing expert, and at a young age he has an annual salary of one million.

Top 100 UP Masters, "Wild Iron Man"

Rather than being a genius who is out of reach, Zhihuijun is better known as a well-known "hardcore" UP host at Bilibili. Currently, Zhihuijun has accumulated 2.487 million fans at Bilibili.

In March 2020, the video "It took a tech geek three months to make the most powerful small TV on Bilibili!" released by Zhihui went viral on the Internet, and Zhihui became the synonym of "tech geek saving the world".

Since then, Zhihui has been posting videos of his self-made projects to Bilibili. He once spent 4 months making a "real bicycle" that can automatically avoid obstacles and drive unmanned; a self-developed Iron Man robot arm Dummy that can sew grapes; a self-made "hard and cute" robot ElectronBot; a self-made gaming power bank and a modular mechanical keyboard... Each video has received a good response.

Zhihui has frequently appeared in the circle, earning him the title of "Wild Iron Man" and the admiration of many netizens. When watching his videos, you will unconsciously open your mouth wide, shocked by Zhihui's wild imagination, amazing execution and maxed-out skill tree.

02 Leaving home to start a business, creating a billion-dollar unicorn in 3 months

At the end of last year, Zhihuijun stated on Weibo that he had resigned from Huawei and would start a new career and do something "more challenging", and this "more challenging" thing was to engage in robotics entrepreneurship.

Zhihuijun's entrepreneurial project is called "Zhiyuan Robotics". Its affiliated company Shanghai Zhiyuan New Technology Co., Ltd. completed three rounds of financing in just three months. It has also received strong bets from top VCs such as Baidu, Matrix Partners, and Gaorong. It now has 14 shareholders, and the company's valuation has soared to more than one billion US dollars, successfully advancing into the ranks of unicorns.

Focus on AI+Robots

Zhiyuan Robot focuses on the development of general humanoid robots and is committed to the deep integration of AI and robots. This can be seen from the latest video released by Zhihuijun.

In April, the "pigeon king" who had disappeared for half a year returned with a new wheeled-legged robot "neZHa (Nezha)". Once the video was released, it quickly swept the Internet. Nezha combines "Chinese style mecha" with "cyber future". Its head is like a flaming spear, its arms are like mixed sky silk, and its feet are like wind-fire wheels. The special wheel-legged design makes it flexible and maneuverable, and it also has intelligent interactive functions, capable of voice control, gesture recognition, and autonomous navigation, which can achieve a high degree of human-machine collaboration.

Zhihui revealed that Nezha is the most complex structure he has ever designed, and the design was completed at the end of last year. However, because there were more important things to invest in, the project was temporarily shelved. neZHa will officially meet everyone as an easter egg at the launch conference of the "big thing" in half a year.

Why is Baidu betting?

The reason why Zhihui was favored by Robin Li was not only because of his reputation as Huawei's "genius boy", but also because the market he was targeting was AGI robots.

At the beginning of the year, Robin Li announced "All in AI" at the Baidu Conference, and seized the opportunity of AI big models, and put all Baidu's efforts into building the self-developed big language model Wenxinyiyan. Robin Li believes that all applications in the future will be developed based on big models, and every industry should have its own big model. Big models will be deeply integrated into the real economy, empowering thousands of industries and helping the Chinese economy create the next golden 30 years.

ChatGPT is like a depth charge, reshaping the ecology of the technology circle, indicating that artificial intelligence has entered a new stage of development. Against this background, the robotics industry will usher in new development opportunities. With the powerful empowerment of AI, robots can perform more sophisticated and complex tasks, and intelligent robots with autonomous learning and decision-making capabilities will become a new outlet.

The key to making robots intelligent lies in the deep integration of AI and machinery.

The robot's "brain" relies on algorithms such as vision and voice, while the "limbs" that perform actions rely on precise mechanical design and control systems. Only through collaborative innovation can a robot become "intelligent."

Zhihuijun is currently focusing on the field of intelligent robots.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Baidu has made a strong bet on Zhiyuan.

03 Conclusion

The AGI market that Zhihui is targeting is extremely lively, with many giants entering the humanoid robot market:

First, UBTECH went public in Hong Kong; then, Tesla Optimus showed off its strength; ByteDance and other large companies have set up humanoid robot teams; Fei-Fei Li's team is exploring embodied intelligence, and even the Universiade that just ended recently was full of humanoid robots...

It can be said that the rapid development of AGI has completed the last important piece of the puzzle for the realization of humanoid robots.

Just as Zhihuijun wrote in his signature: Keep your passion and head for the sea of ​​stars.

Zhihuijun’s entrepreneurial journey has just begun, and everything is full of unknown opportunities and challenges. Will Zhihuijun’s humanoid robot be as “hardcore” as his other works, and give the robotics world a “little shock” again?

The result will be known this morning.