Humanoid robot manufacturer suddenly changes leadership to prepare for large-scale mass production

Famous humanoid robot manufacturer Agility Robotics recently announced that veteran technology executive Peggy Johnson will serve as the company's CEO, replacing co-founder Damion Shelton. Johnson will lead Agility Robotics to expand commercial deployment, expand its product portfolio and prepare for mass production of the humanoid robot Digit.

Rich "Silicon Valley experience"

Peggy Johnson has extensive experience in Silicon Valley. She served as CEO of VR equipment manufacturer Magic Leap, led the company's transformation from the TO C market to the TO B market, and carried out important measures such as capital restructuring. Before joining Magic Leap, Johnson served as executive vice president of business development at Microsoft for six years, responsible for promoting strategic partnerships and transactions, and reporting directly to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

During his tenure at Microsoft, Johnson also launched Microsoft's first corporate venture fund, M12, which has added more than 80 companies to its portfolio in three years.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Johnson worked at chip giant Qualcomm for 24 years, serving as a member of the company's executive committee and holding various leadership positions in engineering, sales, marketing and business development. She was responsible for leading the Internet Services Division, which launched the mobile application download platform BREW in 2001. BREW enabled billions of applications to be downloaded to mobile phones, thereby increasing Qualcomm's chip sales and generating more than $1 billion in revenue from application sales.

Today, humanoid robots are gaining popularity, and humanoid robot manufacturer Agility Robotics is in urgent need of an experienced helmsman to lead them to seize the initiative in the new track and lead Agility from a cutting-edge technology startup to a world-leading robotics company. Peggy Johnson, who has rich "Silicon Valley experience", and Agility Robotics founder Damion Shelton hit it off.

Founder Shelton said that Page's achievements in driving change as CEO of Magic Leap are admirable, and under Page's leadership, Agility can push robotics technology to new heights.

This is another major move by Agility Robotics since it plans to mass-produce humanoid robots. In May 2023, the company appointed Melonee Wise as CTO. Wise sold autonomous mobile robot manufacturer Fetch Robotics to Zebra Technologies for US$290 million in 2021.

The humanoid robot race is hot, and the beachhead battle has begun

The development momentum of humanoid robot technology is increasing day by day. According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), humanoid robots will become one of the most important robotics trends in 2024, and in 2023, nearly 20 companies around the world have launched humanoid robots.

Currently, Agility Robotics has deployed the humanoid robot Digit for customers in some warehousing scenarios. The Digit robot has shown great potential in tests by companies such as Amazon and GXO Logistics. The robot is designed to meet OSHA's strict safety standards, and preliminary verification shows that it can run large AI models to dynamically adapt to new tasks. The next step will be to expand production and promote the application of humanoid robots.

At the end of 2023, Agility Robotics announced that the "RoboFab" super factory in Salem, Oregon is nearing completion. The robot manufacturing plant covers an area of ​​70,000 square feet and is designed to produce 10,000 humanoid robots per year. It will employ 500 employees to work together to achieve true "human-machine collaboration."

It is reported that the manufacturing plant will be delivered and put into use this year, and will officially start mass production and be sold to the global market in 2025.

Although humanoid robots have not yet achieved mass production, there are already many talents in this field. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates recently shared five startups he is optimistic about, three of which are engaged in humanoid robot manufacturing, including Agility of the University of California, Los Angeles, Apptronik and RoMeLa.

Not long ago, another humanoid robot manufacturer, Figure AI, announced the completion of a $675 million Series B financing, the highest record since 2024. Investors include Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft and other Silicon Valley hard technology companies. At the same time, Figure AI reached an agreement with the famous manufacturer BMW to deploy the Figure 01 humanoid robot in BMW factories.

China is also at the forefront of the humanoid robot race. UBTECH Robotics from Shenzhen became the "first humanoid robot stock" at the last minute at the end of last year. And just recently, UBTECH Robotics has entered the NIO factory for an "internship", performing tasks such as inspections and pasting car logos, becoming one of the first batch of humanoid robots to be tried out in application scenarios.

Yushu Technology from Hangzhou also completed a major financing after the beginning of the year, with a total amount of 1 billion yuan. The financing parties include Meituan, Jinshi Investment, Source Code Capital, and old shareholders Shenzhen Capital Group, China Internet Investment, Rongyi, Dunhong and Mida Junshi followed suit. Their quadruped robots have attracted a lot of attention on international stages such as the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the 2022 Winter Olympics, the 2023 Asian Games and the Asian Para Games; and in terms of humanoid robots, the H1 robot has even achieved running, and is very stable and smooth when performing difficult actions such as dodging and jumping.

Conclusion

The dispute over humanoid robots has already begun. Since the beginning of 2024, it is not difficult to see that various manufacturers have gone from being established in 2023, talking about concepts, and constantly obtaining support from the capital market to formally deploying applications, signing order agreements, and expanding production scale in 2024. In the future, the blue ocean market for humanoid robots is likely to turn into a red ocean in an instant. If you fail to seize the initiative, you will be washed away by the waves.