“Genius boy” will build China’s first mass-production factory for humanoid robots?

Humanoid robots, once considered to be "existing only in science fiction movies", are breaking free from the shackles of imagination and moving towards commercial mass production. In this process, a "genius boy" born in the 1990s, with his "Iron Man dream", has promoted the key breakthrough of China's humanoid robot industry.

China's "Iron Man" builds Shanghai's first humanoid mass production factory

The reason why humanoid robots are highly anticipated is that they can be highly compatible with the human working environment and have stronger interactive capabilities. At present, the development of humanoid robots around the world is still in its infancy. Overall, there is no "leading" STAR in the industry, and the research and development, production capabilities and large-scale application of humanoid robots are still a major weak link.

However, the industrial development of humanoid robots faces many challenges, which require breakthroughs in core technologies, cost reduction and increased accessibility, and the cultivation of a supporting industrial ecosystem. For China, this trillion-dollar "blue ocean" that has yet to be explored is a major development opportunity.

Against this backdrop, a young startup team has emerged. They are working hard to move humanoid robots from concept to practice and will build the country's first humanoid robot mass production base in Lingang, Shanghai.

This team is none other than the Zhiyuan Robotics team that sparked a series of heated discussions last year. Its core figure, Peng Zhihui, also known as "Zhihuijun", has the halo of "Huawei's genius boy" and "Bilibili's million-strong UP host", and is also praised by Ren Zhengfei as "the driving force of Huawei's innovation."

At the moment, Peng Zhihui, who started his own business, not only “peaked at the beginning”, but also continued to rise all the way. All major top VCs rushed to offer olive branches. Zhihui Jun said: There is no end to it, there is no end to it...

Zhiyuan Robotics, which just celebrated its first birthday, has completed five rounds of financing with a luxurious lineup of investors. Hillhouse Capital started betting on it from the angel round, and even Baidu and BYD have placed their bets. In the latest round of A+ financing, 11 new shareholders were added, raking in more than 600 million yuan.

The speed of attracting money and developing is amazing. The company has been selected into Forbes China's "2023 Global New Unicorn List", Forbes China's "2023 Top 50 Innovative Chinese Companies", and "2023 Top 100 Science and Technology Unicorns".

It can be said that Zhiyuan has completed in just one year a road that other companies would have taken several years to complete.

Since its inception, the team has aimed at the ultimate goal of mass production of humanoid robots. In August 2023, they released their first humanoid prototype "Yuanzheng A1", and in November they appeared again at the Shanghai Science and Technology Innovation Exhibition. It is reported that new generation products such as "Yuanzheng A2" and "Juechen C5" will also be launched soon to achieve full empowerment of industrial and commercial scenarios and help enterprises upgrade to intelligence.

At the same time, Zhiyuan Robotics and Lingang Group have carried out comprehensive strategic cooperation, and the two parties have signed a contract to promote the establishment of Zhiyuan's manufacturing factory in Lingang Fengxian. This factory is called "Shanghai's first mass production factory for humanoid robots", which means that Zhiyuan will realize localized R&D, manufacturing and application from Lingang, and further improve the industrial ecological chain of humanoid robots.

In addition, several subsidiaries of Lingang Group have reached a letter of intent with Zhiyuan Robotics to purchase robot products. The two parties signed a tripartite strategic cooperation memorandum with the Shanghai Airport Group Big Data Center and China Telecom Shanghai Company's Industrial and Service Key Customer Department on matters such as "Innovative Cooperation in Humanoid Robot Services for Airports" and "Smart Factory (5G+AI+Robots)".

Global companies are competing to break through

Zhiyuan Robotics stands out due to the high popularity of its founder and the key support from various bigwigs. It is expected to become a "pathfinder" in the development of China's embodied intelligent robot industry.

The positive factor is that with the development of artificial intelligence and new-generation information technology, humanoid robots are entering an era of continued cost reduction and continuous performance improvement.

Zhihui Jun once said in an interview that the target cost of Zhiyuan Robot's "Expedition A1" is controlled within 200,000 yuan, which is a significant reduction compared with the previous price. And given the current situation, it will be difficult to achieve commercialization without reducing the price to within 200,000 yuan.

Looking around the world, the development of the humanoid robot industry is also booming.

At the end of last year, American startup Agility Robotics announced that its super factory "RoboFab" in Oregon was about to be completed. The production capacity is designed to produce 10,000 humanoid robots per year, and it strives to become the world's first large-scale humanoid robot manufacturer.

Recently, its humanoid robot Digit successfully "graduated" after three months of "internship" at Amazon. Its work efficiency has reached 75% of the human speed, and its task completion success rate is as high as 97%, which is comparable to human workers.

As a robot powerhouse, Japan is also accelerating the development of the service robot industry. Economically developed cities such as Tokyo and Osaka have begun to deploy humanoid robots to perform service tasks such as reception and shopping guides.

Compared with the global situation, although China started late, it is seeking common ground while reserving differences and accelerating its catch-up in the development of the humanoid robot industry.

Last words

The prospects of humanoid robots are undoubted, and they are expected to become a pillar industry of future society. However, many difficulties still need to be overcome to achieve mass production from concept. The deep integration of industry, capital and even talents may become a new driving force to accelerate this process.

In general, at the critical stage of the start-up of the Chinese humanoid robot industry, domestic manufacturers represented by Zhiyuan Robot have played the role of "pioneers". The completion of this mass production factory may open a new chapter in the Chinese humanoid era.