New developments of Huawei's talented teenager! Will the last piece of BYD's industrial puzzle fall into humanoid robots?

01 Baidu is in the lead, Wang Chuanfu also bets on robots The world's "hottest post-90s"

Recently, according to public data, Shanghai Zhiyuan New Technology Co., Ltd., an affiliated company of Zhiyuan Robotics, has undergone industrial and commercial changes, with the addition of several new shareholders including BYD, BlueRun Ventures, and Wofu Ventures. At the same time, the company's registered capital has increased from RMB 48.4702 million to RMB 50.9738 million.

This is the first time that BYD has publicly bet on humanoid robots. Although it has targeted Zhihuijun, who has been in the limelight recently, and invested 2 million yuan, with a shareholding ratio of nearly 3.76%, ranking as the 7th largest shareholder of Zhiyuan, for the humanoid robot track, which "burns money without blinking an eye", 2 million yuan is just a drop in the bucket.

As a leader in new energy vehicles, BYD's entry into the market this time is more like "spending little money to achieve big things". It uses Zhiyuan Robot as its first step to enter the field of humanoid robots and improve its industrial ambitions.

02 Leaving Huawei, he is a "genius boy" and an "ambitious person"

Speaking of Zhihui, everyone in the technology circle should be familiar with him. In 2020, he was selected as Huawei's "genius teenager", became a Huawei Ascend AI edge computing expert and received the highest treatment. At a young age, he has an annual salary of one million, and is also a well-known hardcore UP host on Bilibili. "Bilibili's most powerful small TV", "real bicycle that can drive automatically", "Iron Man's mechanical arm that can sew grapes ", "wheeled foot robot Nezha"...

Every time the big guy comes up with a project, it’s high-level enough to publish a paper, hence the title of “Wild Iron Man”.

At the end of last year, Zhihuijun announced on Weibo that he had resigned from Huawei and devoted himself to the research and development of the "Zhiyuan Robot" project. He is committed to the deep integration of AI and robots and long-term investment in creating competitive robot products and ecosystems.

With his amazing resume and dazzling halo, Zhihuijun's every move naturally attracted much attention, and major VCs were quick to act upon the news. Zhiyuan Robotics completed three rounds of financing only three months after its establishment. Top VCs such as Baidu, Matrix Partners, and Gaorong Robotics made strong bets, with dozens of shareholders. The company's valuation soared to more than one billion US dollars, making it a technology unicorn.

On August 18, the pigeon king "Zhihuijun" returned with the embodied intelligent robot "Yuanzheng A1". It took only half a year to build a humanoid robot. This speed is quite explosive in the entire robot world!

As the first assignment handed in by Zhiyuan Robotics, Yuanzheng A1 integrates various advanced technologies. It is connected to a large model at its first launch and has powerful human-computer interaction and task execution capabilities. It can not only achieve stable walking, but also be capable of both working in the hall and in the kitchen, whether it is reception or "beating eggs". It can tighten screws on the production line and can work as a nanny in the family, focusing on all-round development!

At the press conference, Zhihuijun said that the goal is to control the hardware cost of the Yuanzheng A1 to less than 200,000 yuan. It will first be used in the field of industrial manufacturing. He has also been in close cooperation negotiations with leading domestic automobile manufacturers, hoping to conduct commercialization trials in the automobile manufacturing assembly scenario.

It now seems that this leading automobile manufacturer is most likely BYD.

03 BYD invests in robots, what is its intention?

BYD is taking action not only for the present but also for the future.

Take the Expedition A1 picked by BYD as an example. It is 175cm tall, weighs 53kg, has 49 degrees of freedom in its body, can bear 80kg, and is equipped with a core joint motor PowerFlow weighing only 1.6kg, and a dexterous hand SkillHand with 12 active degrees of freedom and 5 passive degrees of freedom. These features enable the Expedition A1 to compete with its peers in the humanoid robot track, which is severely "involutionary".

Since the beginning of his business, Zhihui has considered the commercialization of robots as an important consideration. Yuanzheng A1 is highly adaptable to industrial manufacturing and can perfectly transform into a "worker" on the automobile production line to participate in chassis assembly, appearance inspection and other tasks. The cost of implementation is expected to be controlled within 200,000 yuan. Using robots of this price to replace some manual work will greatly shorten the company's investment return period, which is extremely competitive in the humanoid robot industry.

The stunning launch of ChatGPT has reshaped the ecosystem of the technology circle and set off a wave of big prediction models around the world.

With the powerful empowerment of AI, the robotics industry has ushered in new development opportunities. Google has released the "Robot Version of ChatGPT" RT-2, and embodied intelligence is coming in full force. The Yuanzheng A1 is connected to the WorkGPT large model, which enables the robot to have autonomous learning capabilities and can achieve complex language multi-level reasoning. Humanoid robots equipped with a "brain" will undoubtedly become a new outlet in the industry.

In addition, humanoid robots need to have capabilities such as environmental perception, path planning, and visual interaction, which are highly consistent with the core modules of autonomous driving algorithms. From the demonstration at the press conference, it can be seen that the Yuanzheng A1 already has automatic obstacle avoidance and motion control capabilities. Its training data and decision feedback may provide reference for BYD's intelligent driving in the future.

04 Humanoid robots, BYD’s next big gamble?

In addition to being pragmatic, BYD's image as a "gambler" is also deeply rooted in people's hearts. In 2003, BYD officially announced that it would build cars, and it was the "no man's land" of new energy vehicles. Doubts and ridicules were overwhelming, and everyone was asking: "How dare BYD?" Faced with incomprehension, disdain, and even more contempt, BYD persevered for ten years and finally broke through the 5 million threshold, completing a gamble that would either succeed or die, and became a god overnight!

"For BYD, the most difficult period has passed, and a period of strategic opportunities has arrived."

After going through the darkest moment, BYD is now moving towards accelerating smart manufacturing and improving its business. In fact, Wang Chuanfu did not restrict BYD to the framework of a car company. BYD, which has made billions of dollars, has also been making frequent moves in the investment field recently. In terms of chips, it has Horizon Robotics, recently invested in Chengdu Xinjin Electronics, acquired Jabil, reached a strategic investment with laser manufacturer Sagitar, established a joint venture in an autonomous driving company, and invested in humanoid robots...

It is not difficult to see that BYD’s investment strategy is to target the industrial chain and enhance its own supply chain control capabilities; second, to focus on emerging high-growth tracks and accumulate resources.

Open BYD's official website, and you will see the slogan "Building a Dream for the Future, Achieving Dreams". Because of the dream, BYD has made a choice question spanning 20 years with determination and focus. We don't know whether BYD still has the courage and determination to gamble on another dream in the next 20 years.

But robots have long been part of BYD’s technological landscape.

05 There is a long history, and the entry may have been "long-planned"

UBTECH, which recently completed IPO filing and is valued at 10 billion yuan and is striving to become the "first humanoid robot stock", once encountered financial difficulties and turnover difficulties. Xia Zuozheng, chairman of Shenzhen Zhengxuan Investment and non-executive director of BYD, relied on his view that "robots have always been used in industry, while humanoid robots are most likely to enter the lives of the general public and have unlimited prospects" to provide financial assistance to UBTECH in the form of personal loans of 6 million yuan and personal credit of 10 million yuan. Now UBTECH has frequently appeared at various conferences and has made great strides, which is also a sign of hope.

"Hello, welcome to BYD 4S store, how can I help you?"

In 2017, the humanoid robot Cruzr at Shenzhen BYD 4S store attracted a lot of attention. It is not only cute in appearance, but also has strong business capabilities. It is not only proficient in singing and dancing, and can receive guests and bring goods, but also knows the products like the back of its hand. It can answer customers' questions fluently, and has become a gold medal shopping guide.

The human production line laid the foundation for BYD's early success. After the transformation, Wang Chuanfu still used the "human sea tactics" to build cars. Today, 31,800 campus recruits have joined the company, setting a historical record and living up to the name of a "big factory". In 2022, BYD's new energy vehicle sales will increase significantly, and the goal of rolling off the 3 millionth new energy vehicle by the end of the year will be achieved, and the upward momentum is rapid, which is undoubtedly a huge test for production efficiency.

In September last year, more than 10,000 BYD R&D personnel were committed to building an unmanned smart factory, with plans to introduce up to 9,000 robots. The large-scale introduction of robots into the factory will not only save labor costs and meet the requirements of high-precision production processes, but will also be necessary to expand the industrial landscape.