The third category is pure robotics companies, represented by the likes of Youbi Technology and Boston Dynamics, but Boston Dynamics has been acquired by Hyundai Motor, and only Youbi Technology has taken the lead in going public.

According to Frost Sullivan’s report, the Walker robot is China’s first commercial bipedal human-size humanoid robot. From October 2021 to March 2022, the robot served for 6 months at the China Pavilion of Expo Dubai, providing more than 1,000 reception and tour services. This is also the first real commercial landing of large-scale humanoid service robots.

It can be seen that new players continue to pour into the humanoid robot track, which can be described as a group of males and up. Why are tech giants and a host of start-ups targeting humanoid robots?

For their part, the giants are looking at humanoid robots as a new growth engine. Several organizations are predicting high growth in humanoid robots. According to Frost Sullivan forecast, the global humanoid robot market is expected to reach 8 billion US dollars by 2026, accounting for 11.8% of the global intelligent service robot solution industry market size.

Innovative enterprises also see the broad development prospects and application needs of humanoid robots. From the demand side, humanoid robots have gradually penetrated into fields such as education, health care and logistics, enabling these industries. According to Frost Sullivan data, in terms of sales revenue, the market size of China’s intelligent educational robot solutions has increased from 600 million yuan in 2017 to 2.3 billion yuan in 2021, with a compound annual growth rate of 39.9%. Looking to the future, driven by positive factors such as policy promotion, continued popularity, and increased willingness to consume, the artificial intelligence education industry is expected to achieve further growth. At the same time, factors such as the aging population, the shortage of nursing workers, and the epidemic will create huge market opportunities for humanoid robots, resulting in an increase in sales of humanoid robots.

Although the global humanoid robot industry is still in its early stages, and the application scenarios are limited. However, in the coming years, technological advancements in the industry and growing R&D investment will further drive the demand for and commercialization of humanoid robots.

An AI beacon against the tide

Despite the boom in the robotics market, the development of humanoid robots has not been smooth sailing. The earliest robot design can be traced back to the 19th century steam powered robots, since the 20th century countries continue to iterate new robots, until the 1990s, Japan developed the world’s first bipedal robot, can achieve slow static walking, is regarded as the first stage of the breakthrough development of humanoid robots. The second stage is represented by ASIMO robot of Honda in Japan, which realizes continuous dynamic walking. The third stage is the pursuit of highly dynamic motion performance, marked by the difficult motion actions of Boston Dynamics’ ATLAS robot.

At present, humanoid robots are entering the fourth stage, that is, the initial stage of commercial landing. It is also at this time that China really enters the poker table, represented by Walker, competing with Digit of Agility Robotics.

Looking back at the development process of the industry, the previous humanoid robots mainly focused on scientific research experiments, and products with low commercial value attributes were also reshuffled and acquired. For example, Honda ASIMO was originally an extension of the industrial chain by automobile companies, and it was not the core business of the enterprise, and ASIMO was officially retired in 2022 after commercialization was difficult to sustain. Although Boston Dynamics is amazing with technology, but sales are difficult to shake up, in recent years, several acquisitions, into the Hyundai Motor.

As a Chinese private enterprise, Youbi Technology has taken the lead in technology research and development and commercial landing at the beginning of its business to break through with differentiation. In recent years, despite the challenges of the macro environment, we still achieved contrarian growth.

On the one hand, the company is competitive in the key manufacturing links, “servo drive” has become its core technology label, and it is the first company in the world to complete the mass production of servo drives from small torque to large torque (torque from 0.2Nm to 200Nm). At the same time, the self-developed servo drive also directly reduces the threshold for large-scale commercial use, helping Youbi Technology become the first company in the world to reduce the cost of bipedal life-size humanoid robots to less than $100,000, and promote the commercialization process.

On the other hand, as a leading intelligent service robot solution provider in China, Youbi Technology has nearly 1,000 enterprise customers and sold a total of 500,000 robots. At present, the company has laid out a relatively complete product matrix, and has been involved in both enterprise and consumer markets. In 2016, Youbi Technology launched consumer-grade robots and other intelligent hardware equipment; In 2017, Youbi Technology launched intelligent education robot and general service intelligent robot products and solutions; In 2020, Youbi Technology launched intelligent logistics robot products and solutions; In 2022, Youbixuan Technology will launch intelligent health robot products and solutions.