The big winners of 2024! Six hard technology giants line up to invest 5 billion

If 2023 is the first year of the concept of humanoid robots , then 2024 will be the beginning of the bayonet fight.

Humanoid robots are so beautiful that giant companies are betting on them

On February 22, Yushu Technology, a domestic humanoid robot company, posted a message on its official Weibo account, announcing the arrival of 1 billion yuan in financing. This is the largest amount of financing obtained by a domestic humanoid robot company since the beginning of the year.

Then, Figure AI announced that it had completed a financing of 675 million US dollars, about 4.8 billion yuan, becoming the heaviest investment in humanoid robots in 2024. This round of financing was preheated a month ago. According to people familiar with the matter, Figure AI is preparing a new round of financing of about 500 million US dollars. Microsoft may invest 95 million US dollars in this round of financing, and OpenAI will invest 5 million US dollars.

Several of the world's largest technology companies participated in the investment, betting on the future of humanoid robots, which greatly increased this round of financing from the initially rumored US$500 million to US$675 million.

The super-giant consortium that invested in this round includes: the former world's richest man, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos himself and Amazon's funds, NVIDIA, LG, Samsung, OpenAI and Microsoft, which has just become the world's most valuable company.

The humanoid robot dispute begins

The first full-size humanoid robot was born at Waseda University in 1972. Ichiro Kato, known as the "Father of Humanoid Robots", led his team to successfully develop the "WABOT-1" in five years. Half a century has passed since then.

During this half century, humanoid robots have not disappeared. Companies such as Honda and Boston Dynamics continue to develop humanoid robots, but more companies choose to invest in industrial robots and mobile robots with higher returns. Humanoid robots are more like fancy toys that cannot make any waves.

After 50 years of ups and downs, the current situation has completely changed. With the spread of the wave of self-generated artificial intelligence, human technology has reached a critical juncture of the fourth revolution, and embodied intelligence has also been pushed to the forefront. Humanoid robots have become recognized as the best carrier of embodied intelligence, riding on the momentum of AI, and have become the most gimmicky business at the moment.

2023 is the year with the most humanoid robot products launched in history. Although these robots may still exist in the conceptual stage and are still some distance away from commercialization, their successive appearances have sparked a dispute.

Figure AI set a goal at the beginning of its establishment to become the world's first commercially viable general-purpose humanoid robot. This new company was established in 2022, and its founder is not even a technology expert, but he has shouted the loudest slogan.

Figure founder Brett Adcock is the founder of Vettery, a well-known overseas talent recruitment website platform. During this entrepreneurial experience, Brett Adcock discovered that the serious labor shortage problem in the United States directly affected the improvement of productivity. According to statistics, there are 10 million unsafe or unpopular jobs facing vacancies in the United States. Some positions cannot be replaced by existing robots. Humanoid robots have become the best solution for BA to replace human work in the physical world.

Whether it can truly become the first commercial general-purpose humanoid robot is still unclear, but Figure has indeed become one of the first companies to sign humanoid robot use agreements with manufacturers.

In January 2024, Figure announced a commercial agreement with BMW Manufacturing Co., LLC of BMW to deploy general-purpose humanoid robots in automotive manufacturing plants.

According to the agreement, the cooperation between BMW and Figure will be promoted in multiple stages. In the first stage, Figure AI will determine the specific plan for deploying humanoid robots based on the actual situation of BMW factories. After the completion of the first stage, Figure robots will be deployed in stages at BMW's manufacturing plant in Spartanburg, South Carolina. In addition to deploying humanoid robots for practical applications in the workshop, BMW Manufacturing and Figure will also jointly explore advanced technology topics such as artificial intelligence, robot control, manufacturing virtualization and robot integration.

Not only does Figure AI have a bright business prospect, it also demonstrates leading robot autonomous learning capabilities, which has become a killer feature for attracting investment from top companies.

Figure 01 is equipped with an end-to-end AI system. By watching 10 hours of videos of people making coffee, it can completely complete the steps of opening the lid, putting in coffee, pressing the brewing button, etc. completely autonomously. If it encounters problems in the middle, it can also self-debug and optimize.

Autonomous learning is the key to moving towards higher-level intelligence, and such a fast and accurate end-to-end AI system has never appeared on any current humanoid robot product. The founder also said: This is the robot's true GPT moment!

Working in the car production workshop together with Figure AI is another humanoid robot, and its progress is not just limited to the written agreement, but it has already entered the factory to work - it is the UBTECH robot from Shenzhen.

On December 29, 2023, the "first humanoid robot stock" was born. UBTECH Robotics Inc. (stock code: 9880.HK) from Shenzhen was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with a market value of approximately HK$38 billion.

Appearing with the founder and ringing the bell was UBTECH's new generation industrial humanoid robot Walker S. This was also the first time in human history that a humanoid robot rang the bell at a launch ceremony.

Just over a month later, Walker S, the first person to ring the bell in the market, ushered in a new career. He officially entered the manufacturing plant of new energy vehicle company NIO and started his "apprenticeship" career in the manufacturing workshop.

According to UBTECH, the tasks of Walker S' "training" in the car factory include adaptive walking on mobile production lines, robust odometer and walking planning, perception and autonomous operation, system data communication and task scheduling, etc.

In the official video, the humanoid robot performed tasks such as left front (rear) door lock quality inspection, real-time image acquisition and transmission, 3D object (vehicle) precise positioning, adaptive mobile production line rapid start and stop, seat belt detection, 6D posture recognition, 3D navigation and obstacle avoidance, multi-modal sensor fusion perception, left rear light cover quality inspection, and high-precision and smooth vehicle logo application in the factory.

There is another car-related humanoid robot, which is an extremely high-profile top-tier one - Tesla Optimus Prime robot. Founder Musk once loudly declared that the benefits of humanoid robots in the future will be higher than electric cars, and the Optimus Prime robot is Tesla's future "Optimus Prime".

Just today, Tesla released the latest developments of the Optimus Prime robot. From the video, the gait of the Optimus Prime robot is lighter than before, and its similarity to humans has been further improved.

Combined with the video released by Tesla before, Optimus Prime can be said to be in the first echelon in robot sports. He performed difficult yoga moves, folded clothes, and sorted building blocks with ease in the video.

At the same time, Tesla is also preparing a blockbuster in terms of price. According to founder Musk's multiple conversations, thanks to a stable supply chain and the decentralization of autonomous driving technology, once the Tesla Optimus Prime robot goes on sale, the price may be only US$20,000.

The above companies are just the tip of the iceberg of humanoid robots. Many humanoid robot manufacturers are eyeing this golden track. Zhiyuan Robotics, founded by the "genius boy Zhihuijun", was the domestic humanoid robot company with the highest financing and valuation last year. At the beginning of 2024, it joined forces with the top domestic university Peking University and is ready to go; 1X, which raised 100 million yuan with a 13-page PPT, is also preparing to make a big move after getting the money... The humanoid robot track has long been undercurrent.

Some discussion

There is a question worth thinking about, do we need humanoid robots?

Some people say that humanoid robots are designed to imitate humans, are the tools that adapt to the human physical world the fastest, are the optimal solution for quickly integrating into human society and realizing human-machine collaboration, and are the best carriers of general artificial intelligence.

Some people say that the human form is a manifestation of human obsession with themselves. More efficient wheeled walking will double the efficiency of foot-based walking, and production does not require a complete "person" to assist or even replace human work.

But is the significance of humanoid robots really limited to their human form? From the concept to being ignored and then becoming popular, it is not just the form that can promote the development of humanoid robots. Every precision component and every AI software builds a humanoid robot like a puzzle. The development of each small part not only promotes humanoid robots, but can also be decentralized and applied to all robots, improving every bit of the entire robot industry chain.

Regardless of how great our future demand for humanoid robots may be, we should pursue the jewel in the crown of technology.