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Yu Kai once said that Horizon Group’s long-term mission is still robots.

Text丨Zhang Jiahao

Edited by Cheng Manqi

We have learned exclusively that Horizon Robotics, a company that provides autonomous driving computing solutions, has set up an embodied intelligence lab of about 50 people. The team is led by Su Zhizhong, the former head of Horizon Robotics' intelligent driving perception R&D department. He joined Horizon Robotics in 2017 and was one of the initial members of Baidu's Institute of Deep Learning (IDL).

At the beginning of 2024, Horizon Robotics established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Digua Robotics, which mainly develops the underlying computing platform for consumer robots. The new embodied intelligence team within Horizon Robotics mainly develops embodied intelligence software and hardware for the more distant future.

Yu Kai’s starting point for entrepreneurship was robots. When he met with investors before founding Horizon Robotics in 2015, he said, “The whole world will be robots in the future.” There are huge opportunities here, which are rare to come across in ten or twenty years. Horizon Robotics was also originally registered as “Horizon Robotics.”

Another key leader of the team is Su Zhizhong, the former head of Horizon's intelligent driving perception R&D department. He joined Horizon in 2017 and was one of the initial members of Baidu's Institute of Deep Learning (IDL).

Yu Yinan and Su Zhizhong are at the same level and report to Yu Kai.

At the beginning of 2024, Horizon Robotics established a wholly-owned subsidiary, Digua Robotics, which mainly develops the underlying computing platform for consumer robots. The new embodied intelligence team within Horizon Robotics mainly develops embodied intelligence software and hardware for the more distant future.

Yu Kai’s starting point for entrepreneurship was robots. When he met with investors before founding Horizon Robotics in 2015, he said, “The whole world will be robots in the future.” There are huge opportunities here, which are rare to come across in ten or twenty years. Horizon Robotics was also originally registered as “Horizon Robotics.”

Since 2019, Horizon Robotics has focused its business on autonomous driving computing platforms and has rapidly grown into a leading company in the industry. In Yu Kai's eyes, Horizon Robotics's further future is still "robots". In an interview with us this year, he said: "As a group, Horizon Robotics' long-term mission is still robots."

Yu Kai believes that smart cars are a vertical category of robots. Just like the rise of smartphones, which led to the development of smart tablets, TVs and other devices, the path from smart cars to robots may be similar: first use the huge hardware form of cars to "break through" robot-related software and hardware technologies. For example, driven by smart cars, the price of laser radar has dropped from 700,000 yuan 10 years ago to 2,000-3,000 yuan, which is also the sensor needed by robots. The existing huge automobile industry can also attract more funds, talents and industry chain players to participate, and reserve supply chains and powerful leading companies for the future development of robots.

After personal assistants, embodied intelligence and humanoid robots are another hot large-scale model landing direction. From cleaning robots to robotic arms in production lines, to wheeled robots that can carry goods in factories, this field has been iterating. In recent years, the application of end-to-end and large-scale model technologies in autonomous driving, as well as the progress of key hardware technologies such as joints, have allowed robot practitioners to see the opportunity of "universal humanoid robots."

Several automobile and intelligent driving companies are making related arrangements.

Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot is a pioneer in the industry. Musk said earlier this year that the robot will be produced in limited quantities next year and used on the production line of Tesla's factory. He believes that the market size of Optimus will reach 25 trillion US dollars, several times the size of the electric vehicle market.

NVIDIA established the Embodied Intelligence Laboratory (GEAR) in the first quarter of this year, led by senior research scientists Jim Fan and Zhu Yuke. At GTC in March, NVIDIA released the humanoid robot single-board computer Jetson Thor, as well as a series of supporting models and software. The term "Embodied AI" was also popularized by Huang Renxun himself in his speeches.

Xiaopeng also released a humanoid robot platform at the end of 2023. He Xiaopeng recently demonstrated a scene where a robot placed an order to buy a car.

Embodied intelligence is one of the few technology startup fields that can still obtain large amounts of financing. It is also a future direction that leading technology companies are willing to invest in, although it is still far from large-scale implementation.