Tesla’s Optimus faces humanoid competition at Beijing robot conference

BEIJING — While Chinese corporations last week showed off humanlike robots playing the zither or grabbing sodas, Tesla displayed its Optimus humanoid inside a transparent box, motionless next to its cars.

Elon Musk has claimed Optimus can fold laundry, and sooner or later cook, clean or teach children — tech he touts may give Tesla a worth of $25 trillion. Musk says Tesla plans to check out the humanoids in its factories next 12 months. It’s unclear how well they will perform without delay.

Meanwhile, the World Robot Conference that began Wednesday in Beijing claimed 27 humanoids debuted on the event, a record. Just like the country’s rush into electric cars a number of years ago, money and resources are actually flowing into the event of humanlike robots.

Total investment into China’s robotics industry within the last decade has exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14.01 billion), said Wei Cao, partner at Lanchi Ventures. He said the firm has around 15 billion to twenty billion yuan in assets under management.

Cao told CNBC he expects the following milestone for humanoid development will occur in the following 12 months or two: a commercially viable use case in manufacturing wherein the robots can move around and know the right way to prioritize a series of tasks.

That is more sophisticated than repeating a single task, reminiscent of grabbing a water bottle, which the robots can already do, Cao identified. He noted how artificial intelligence, including reminiscent of models from OpenAI and Alibaba, has significantly improved how successful robots will be at processing information for performing tasks.

Lanchi Ventures is an investor in Shanghai-based Agibot, a humanoid startup founded in February 2023 by a one-time Huawei recruit. A couple of days before the World Robot Conference, the startup revealed five recent robots, some available for preorder with a 5,000 yuan deposit.

Agibot goals to start some deliveries in mid-October, followed by a batch of 300 robots starting in November. Its commercial for the available humanlike robots showed they might act as sales people, gallery guides or pickers of factory parts. Some were on display on the conference.

Also in attendance was Stardust Intelligence’s Astribot S1 humanlike robot, which in late April had appeared in a promotional video folding a shirt and pouring wine. A couple of of the robots on display on the conference performed intricate Chinese martial arts moves, played the zither and wrote Chinese brush calligraphy.

Shenzhen-based Stardust was founded in December 2022 by a former member of Tencent and Baidu’s robotics projects. The startup says it uses artificial intelligence to support the robots’ imitation learning, where the machines can replicate actions after watching them.

Other humanlike robots, from lesser-known corporations Galbot and Turui, put products into baskets or brought individual soda cans from a shelf to a different table.

A number of the actions were stiff and slow. It is not all the time clear whether the actions are being remotely controlled, or done autonomously. Demos don’t reveal all the pieces a couple of product’s capabilities.

In comparison with last 12 months, the number and sorts of demos on the World Robot Conference increased significantly, Lanchi’s Cao said, noting that many students and young people also attended.

In his assessment, robot tech from Tesla and other U.S. corporations are likely one to 2 years ahead of that in China. But Cao identified that China has self-sufficiency in greater than 95% of the humanoid supply chain.

As for why Tesla didn’t showcase Optimus in motion on the conference, Cao said the promo videos already show it has high capabilities and he understands if the corporate didn’t want to speculate resources in having an engineer to operate demos.

Tesla didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

Jeff Burnstein, president of the U.S. Association for Advancing Automation (A3), spoke on the conference via a recorded video and showed some virtual demonstrations of humanoid startups reminiscent of Agility.

“These are demos, but they in addition to others are actually in pilot programs, and a few corporations we imagine actually began using them greater than only a pilot,” he said, noting the association is having its own humanoid conference in Tennessee on Oct. 7.

As an alternative of replicating the whole lot of a human being suddenly, humanoid corporations have tended to give attention to specific parts before moving to others.

One among Shenzhen-based Limx Dynamics’ products released this 12 months is the P1, a robot for research purposes that may balance on two legs. It could walk up and down stairs, and regain balance when shoved.

Limx Dynamics was founded greater than two years ago. Its recent backers include Alibaba, based on PitchBook. The startup earlier this month announced its humanoid could move objects in a warehouse and autonomously replan the right way to complete a task if the goal is moved.

Other corporations on the World Robot Conference showed off an array of gears, robot hands and other parts.

Across the 12 months 2030, a single robot will likely have the opportunity to perform easy household tasks, nursing care and medical treatment, partly by itself and partly in cooperation with humans, Shigeki Sugano, president of the Robotics Society of Japan, said Thursday in the course of the conference forum.

That features the flexibility to specific emotions, he said. He doesn’t expect fully autonomous humanoids until after 2050.

Amongst the event challenges, he said that if a humanoid robot is to support humans fully, then it would need to handle the present problem of not having enough power.

A humanoid’s battery may only last for 2 hours before needing to be recharged.