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With the continuous advancement of technology, the industrial application of humanoid robots has also begun to accelerate.

Recently, the General Office of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government issued the "Shanghai Action Plan to Promote Industrial Services to Empower Industrial Upgrading (2024-2027)", proposing to promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence and manufacturing, establish a national humanoid robot manufacturing innovation center, and create a number of humanoid robot-enabled manufacturing application scenarios in the fields of automobile, electrical equipment production and parts processing, and form robot production solutions.

As early as the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and seven other departments jointly issued the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting Innovation and Development of Future Industries", focusing on breaking through key technologies, cultivating key products, and expanding scenario applications.

At the end of March, at the 2024 Shanghai Global Investment Promotion Conference, Shanghai released investment opportunities in key industry chain segments and proposed a plan to achieve large-scale application demonstrations of 1,000 humanoid robots within three years, guided by "application traction and scenario drive". Relying on the Humanoid Robot Manufacturing Innovation Center, we will create an innovative ecosystem that integrates technology research and development, achievement incubation, talent cultivation, and platform support to accelerate the industrialization process of humanoid robots.

At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in early July, Zhuang Mudi, deputy secretary-general of the Shanghai Municipal People's Government, once again emphasized that the humanoid robot industry is a key area of ​​innovation and development in Shanghai. The Shanghai Municipal Government will continue to optimize the innovation ecosystem, support the research and development of core technologies and industrial agglomeration, so as to achieve high-quality development of the humanoid robot industry. It is hoped that experts and developers will actively contribute their wisdom and jointly shape Shanghai's leading position in the field of humanoid robots.

The development path of humanoid robots is becoming increasingly clear. Which application scenarios will be implemented first? Which industries are expected to benefit from humanoid robots in the future?

Behind the scene landing: crucial for scale

Yang Zhengye, director of the market system of the National and Local Co-construction Humanoid Robot Innovation Center (hereinafter referred to as the "National and Local Innovation Center"), said in an interview with The Paper that now is an era of "technology is king", so the humanoid robot industry must be developed. At present, there are gaps in technology, including data, software development, and some high-end scientific research facilities and equipment. The establishment of the National and Local Innovation Center is to accumulate resources through national power and solve the problems in the early stages of the humanoid robot industry. "We can't catch up in the vertical time axis, so we can accumulate resources together horizontally through the power of the entire country."

The National and Local Jointly-built Humanoid Robot Innovation Center Opens Source Universal Humanoid Robot Public Edition "Qinglong"

In May this year, the National Land Innovation Center was unveiled in Shanghai. In June, the center established a humanoid robot industry fund with an estimated total amount of more than 10 billion yuan. It is also building a training ground in Pudong that can accommodate 100 humanoid robots for intelligent training. The first phase of construction will be completed in November. It is expected that by 2027, the training ground will be expanded to accommodate 1,000 humanoid robots for training.

Yang Zhengye believes that the development of humanoid robots requires the improvement of artificial intelligence and industrialization levels. At present, artificial intelligence technology has reached the application stage, and the level of industrialization and material science also meet the development needs of humanoid robots. The brain of a humanoid robot is its core, which determines its thinking and logical ability. At present, domestic hardware manufacturing capabilities are stronger than the accumulation of brain technology. Although there are bottlenecks, customized hardware and software can be used to meet specific needs and realize applications in specific scenarios.

Shanghai robot company Fourier Intelligence told the reporter from The Paper that the implementation of application scenarios is crucial to the formation of mature large-scale robot production and services. After the action plan was proposed, they were excited and encouraged to see more good policies to support the development of the humanoid robot industry.

A founder of a humanoid robot company that has been settled in Shanghai for many years also expressed a similar view in an interview with The Paper. He believes that the current humanoid robots in China still have a gap in brain AI capabilities and must be brave enough to catch up, but in terms of humanoid robot bodies and cerebellar motor control, there is no generation gap between China and the United States. "The humanoid robot industry has just begun, and the competition in the future will be extremely fierce. Whether it is a large manufacturer or a startup, they may find their direction here. It is not entirely a competition, but it can also form a huge ecosystem that will take the industry to a new height."

Zhou Jian, founder of UBTECH, also said in a recent interview: "Hardware is never a threshold. It is the hardware as a terminal that generates and collects future data, defines the user profile more accurately, and provides better services and content. This is the difference between Nokia and Apple."

Zhou Jian said that the hardware threshold is only a time threshold, and it is not the underlying threshold itself. The threshold of the ecosystem behind it is the biggest. The most important thing is to be able to quickly find and meet the corresponding needs in different subdivided scenarios.

Application scenario logic: structured scenarios are tested first, and data is accumulated before intelligent improvement

Many humanoid robot companies told The Paper that the target scenarios for humanoid robots will mainly focus on high-risk and high-intensity scenarios such as special industrial industries, commercial scenarios, and care scenarios such as elderly care and childcare.

Chen Jianyu, assistant professor at Tsinghua University Institute of Cross-Disciplinary Information Sciences and founder of Xingdong Jiyuan, said:The reason for choosing industrial scenarios is that we can put aside the human factor, which brings the greatest uncertainty, and use its capabilities in relatively limited, structured and predictable scenarios.。

Ji Chao, chief scientist of iFlytek Robotics, told The Paper:The application scenarios of humanoid robots will definitely start from manufacturing scenarios such as automobile manufacturing, vehicle assembly, logistics sorting, etc., repetitive, tedious or dangerous tasks that are not particularly complex and do not require high precision, and then slowly accumulate data, iterate algorithms, and finally upgrade to intelligence and enter the home.

UBTECH's Walker S humanoid robot "internship" in a car factory

It can be seen that domestic humanoid robots have indeed entered the industrial manufacturing and service industry scenarios.

This year, UBTECH Robotics, the "first humanoid robot stock", has reached cooperation with NIO, Dongfeng Liuqi, Beijing FAW-Volkswagen and other automakers to enter factories to complete assembly, testing and other tasks, as well as the exploration of highly intelligent and flexible production lines and super unmanned automobile factories; Fourier Intelligent's humanoid robots have also entered the Shanghai Branch of China Construction Bank, and cooperated to build a commercial bank scenario application training base. The robots complete simple conversations and number-taking in the lobby, and have also started "internships" at the SAIC-GM factory, carrying out tasks such as installation of live high-voltage components and high-precision operations.

UBTECH said that by deploying and applying humanoid robots in a real car manufacturing environment, it can continuously accumulate all-factor production data, use AI technology to perceive, learn, and iterate, realize an intelligent management closed loop, and quickly adapt to new task requirements based on the autonomous learning ability of humanoid robots' embodied intelligence, providing agile deployment in manufacturing scenarios. At the same time, the automobile manufacturing industry is large in scale and highly automated, and has a relatively strong desire to introduce humanoid robots.

Yang Zhengye told reporters that humanoid robots are mobile and multifunctional, and are suitable for use in factories. Humanoid robots are part of embodied intelligence, and can be extended to other areas in the future. "Because the scenes are fixed, and the work in the scenes is fixed. For these scenes, we can make customized hardware and software, try them out first in certain fields, and then feed the data and technology obtained from them back to general humanoid robots, and eventually become the closest assistants to humans."

A person in charge of industrial humanoid robot applications told The Paper that bringing humanoid robots into factories is to cultivate humanoid robots with technical capabilities. Developers and users work together to conduct preliminary technical verification in the scene. From the perspective of the industrial field, what is more important is the AI ​​software capabilities of the humanoid robot's brain and cerebellum.Compared with the industrial sector, the service industry has higher tolerance and acceptance.

After industrial applications, what other scenarios can we expect?

The person in charge of Dahua Robotics believes that humanoid robots will be put into use in the fields of scientific research and medical treatment relatively quickly. The person in charge of Leju Robotics also said that the target scenarios for the company's humanoid robots are university scientific research, traffic guidance, exhibition hall guidance, family services, etc.

Gu Jie, founder and CEO of Fourier Intelligence, said in an interview with The Paper that humanoid robots are very good representatives of new quality productivity and can lead a new industrial revolution and future trends. "The Chinese humanoid robot industry has great advantages in supply chain, mass production capabilities and scenario implementation."

He believes that humanoid robots have great potential for application in scenarios such as elderly care, rehabilitation, and inspection. Shanghai focuses on artificial intelligence, and with its existing large models and robot advantages, it has certain advantages in the development of humanoid robots.

The founder of the aforementioned Shanghai humanoid robot company also told the reporter from The Paper that Shanghai has three major advantages in developing the humanoid robot industry: talent, industrial chain, and internationalization. Shanghai has a very high talent density, with many talents in mechanics, electronics, algorithms, software, and design, which can meet the needs of companies for top engineers; it also has a very complete industrial chain, and has a good foundation for consumer electronics and AI industries such as new energy vehicles, large models, and computing centers; in addition, Shanghai's international advantages can help products enter the global market faster.

Fourier intelligent humanoid robot during the Artificial Intelligence Conference

At the same time, Yang Zhengye said that the attention of society and capital is also the key to promoting technological development. For example, open source platforms can reduce the investment in basic research and help technicians achieve breakthroughs on a higher platform; policy support and more developers and talent training are conducive to the rapid iteration of technology. In addition to land supply, financial subsidies, talent incentives and other support, local policies on humanoid robots should also focus on guiding the development of the industry.

In the view of Lu Kunlun, executive director of Huaye Tiancheng, the investor, the combination of policies and market rules can truly promote industrial development. From the perspective of the entire industrial chain, the imagination space for humanoid robots is very large and the ceiling is also very high. There will be three stages of industrialization in the future.In the first stage, robots perform some semi-structured work in semi-open scenarios; the second stage is a more generalized commercial scenario; and the third stage is when they truly enter the home.