Indeed, Tesla Motors Chief Executive Elon Musk attributed his astonishment over their performance to this statement he made: “Chinese robots now dance professionally on stage.” According to reports on December 20, Elon Musk posted a video on his Twitter account featuring Unitree Robotics’ G1 humanoid robots dressed in their silver outfits synchronously performing choreographed dance moves along with other human dancers during a concert of Chinese-American singer Wang Leehom in the city of Chengdu.
Technical spirit: This comes in the form of the sophisticated motion control and balancing system used in the G1 robots. Millisecond reaction capability and perception of the environment were added into these robots by their developers, which allowed the robots to respond to unforeseen conditions on the showstage, prevent collision, and keep their balance even after completing aerial movements. There has been much improvement observed in the flexibility of the joints and speed of the responses, which are now quite fluid, like the movements of the human dancers on show, unlike the first show where the Lunar New Year gala took place, where the movements looked stiffer.
Unitree Robotics, also nicknamed “Boston Dynamics of China,” leads the pack when it comes to humanoid technology. As of now, their G1 line is the most widely used humanoid robot globally. It retails for a starting price of approximately $16,000. This is significantly lower compared to Tesla’s competing model, the Optimus Gen 2, which is expected to retail for not less than $20,000. Last week, Unitree released its latest humanoid robot, dubbed the R1, for only $5,900. Of course, this is an excellent approach if their plan is to build an action data treasure chest for the next models of artificial intelligence. Since it started posting profitable results in 2020, the firm already breaks the barrier of over 1 billion yuan or $140 million per annum. It is set for an IPO valuation of up to $7 billion. Among its financial backers are Alibaba, Tencent, and Geely.
The Chinese humanoid robot industry is progressing at breakneck speed. It has filed applications for no less than 7,705 patents relating to humanoids in the past five years alone, which is five times that of the US, at 1,561, according to the most recent Robot Almanac report by Morgan Stanley. Behind the success of the patents is a cost-effective supply chain chain—the price of Tesla’s Optimus Gen 2 without Chinese parts will triple, and the price of actuators will increase from $22,000 to $58,000.
Chinese humanoids are also involved in other industrial fields aside from the entertainment field. Large corporations such as BYD, Geely, Xpeng, NIO, and Midea use humanoids in automating their industries. Examples include Midea’s industrial six-armed humanoid whose implementation will occur in its Wuxi washing machine plant, whereas group Xpeng aims to achieve mass production of humanoids by 2026 and sales of one million by 2030. China currently accounting for 54% of all global industrial robot installations, topping 300,000 new installations per year and reaching a total installation base of 2 million.
The use of AI platforms like Nvidia’s Jetson AGX Thor is making Chinese humanoids interact in a smart manner with human beings. The above aspect is essential for all applications, including those involving adaptive responses, like those used during concerts, including that performed by Wang Leehom. They deal with data related to the environment and, therefore, act accordingly, including adapting the trajectories of their movements depending on the tempo at which the human beings are performing.
The China robotics market is forecasted to grow from 47 billion dollars in 2024 to 108 billion dollars by 2028, as the China Government promotes smart manufacturing, AI innovation, and automation. The new regions include Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou, which are setting up their smart robotic ecosystems. The cobots are breaking the barrier for smaller and medium businesses. The presentation at the concert stage symbolizes a larger transition, as the technology is moving from the factory floor into other spaces. It symbolizes undoubtedly a dream for engineering pride, but more importantly, becoming a world leader in “embodied intelligence,” which means a smooth integration of AI and physical machines in accomplishing a complex array of AI-related, human-like tasks.
