China’s robot makers eye Tesla to deliver humanoid workers By Reuters

By Qiaoyi Li and Kevin Krolicki

BEIJING (Reuters) – China dominates the electric vehicle market. Now he’s following Tesla (NASDAQ: ) in the race to build battery-powered humanoids that are expected to replace the human workers who build electric vehicles on assembly lines.

At this week’s World Robot Conference in Beijing, more than two dozen Chinese companies showcased humanoid robots designed to work in factories and warehouses, with even more displaying the precision Chinese-made parts needed to build them.

China’s push into the emerging industry is based on the formula behind its initial lead in electric vehicles more than a decade ago: government support, ruthless price competition from a wide range of new entrants and a deep supply chain.

“China’s humanoid robot industry is demonstrating clear advantages in supply chain integration (and) mass production capabilities,” said Arjen Rao, an analyst at China’s LeadLeo Research Institute.

The robotics effort is underpinned by President Xi Jinping’s policy to develop “new productive forces” in technology — a point made in brochures for this week’s event.

The city of Beijing launched a $1.4 billion robotics fund in January, while Shanghai announced plans to set up a $1.4 billion humanoid industry fund in July.

The robots on display this week come from some of the same domestic suppliers that have ridden the EV wave, including battery and sensor makers.

Goldman Sachs estimated in January that the annual global market for humanoid robots will reach $38 billion by 2035, with nearly 1.4 million shipments for consumer and industrial applications. It estimated that the cost of materials to build them had fallen to about $150,000 each in 2023, excluding research and development costs.

“There’s a lot of room to cut costs,” said Hu Debo, CEO of Shanghai Kepler Exploration Robotics, a company he co-founded last year inspired by Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot.

“China specializes in iteration and rapid production.”

Hu’s company is working on the fifth version of a worker robot to be tested in factories. He expects the sale price to be less than $30,000.

THE “SISTER EFFECT” IS COMING TO ROBOTS

When Tesla opened its Shanghai factory in 2019, Chinese officials said they expected the EV pioneer to have a “sleeper effect” on the Chinese industry: the introduction of a big competitor that would make Chinese rivals swim faster.

Tesla’s Optimus robot had a similar effect, Hu said.

The American automaker first introduced the Optimus in 2021, which CEO Elon Musk then touted as “more significant than the vehicle business over time.”

Musk’s company is using an artificial intelligence approach for Optimus, modeled on its “Full Self-Driving” software for electric vehicles. Chinese competitors and analysts say Tesla has an early lead in AI, but China has the ability to undercut the manufacturing price.

Tesla showed the mannequin-like Optimus sitting in a Plexiglas box next to a Cybertruck at an exhibition alongside the Beijing conference this week.

Optimus was overtaken by many waving, walking or even shrugging Chinese humanoids, but it was still one of the most popular exhibits and crowded with people taking photos.

“Next year there will be over 1,000 of my countrymen in the factory,” read a sign near Optimus.

Tesla, in a statement, reiterated that it expects to move beyond prototypes to begin producing the Optimus in small volumes next year.

ASSEMBLY LINE ROBOTS

Hong Kong-listed UBTECH Robotics has also tested its robots in car factories. It started with Geely and announced a deal on Thursday to test them at an Audi factory in China.

“By next year, our goal is to mass produce,” said Sotirios Stasinopoulos, UBTECH’s project manager.

That would mean up to 1,000 robots working in factories, he said. “It’s the first milestone toward full-scale implementation.”

UBTECH uses Nvidia (NASDAQ: ) chips in its robots, but more than 90 percent of the components are from China.

The current generation of manufacturing robots — massive arms capable of welding and other tasks — has been led mainly by companies outside China, including Japan’s Fanuc ( OTC: ), Swiss engineering group ABB ( ST: ) and Germany’s Kuka-owned of Chinese appliances. the manufacturer Midea.

China leads the world in factory-installed manufacturing robots, more than three times the number in North America, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

Xin Guobin, China’s vice minister for industry and information technology, said at the opening of the event in Beijing that his ministry had implemented Xi’s guidance and made China “an important force in the global robotics industry.”

Last November, the country called for mass production of humanoid robots by 2025, but this will begin on a much smaller scale than is needed to transform production of electric vehicles.

“I think it’s likely to be at least 20 to 30 years before humanoid robots can achieve large-scale commercial applications,” said Rao, of the LeadLeo Research Institute.