In recent years, generative AI has matured, making it possible for more intelligent humanoid robots to come to life. 2024 is known as the "Year of Humanoid Robot Awakening", and at the moment of the explosion of artificial intelligence, humanoid robots may achieve unexpected growth and become the next trillion-level "blue ocean".
At the time of the replacement of the old and the new, the humanoid robot industry has set off another boom, and good news at home and abroad has come together.
On December 24, 2024, Boston Dynamics released the latest video of the humanoid robot Atlas, in which the robot plays Santa Claus who can perform actions such as bending his knees and squatting, throwing his arms back, flipping in the air, and landing steadily. In the latest video of Optimus released by Tesla (TSLA.US), the humanoid robot shows the ability to catch a tennis ball with bare hands, and the reaction speed and hand dexterity are improved.
The new humanoid robot PM01 released by Zhongqing Robotics, a domestic company, on the same day, has 24 degrees of freedom in the whole body, a moving speed of 2 meters per second, a 320-degree free rotation motor at the waist, and two walking modes: mechanical gait and human-like natural gait. Unitree's Unitree B2-W robot dog video updated on December 23 shows Thomas's new skills such as full spin, side flip, 360° jump and turn, dash jump, polar parkour, etc., which can climb against the current in streams, jump from the top of a 2.8m building, and climb forward with a load of 40kg.
At the same time, many crossover players also joined the battle. A few days ago, Open AI was revealed to be self-developed humanoid robots; Nvidia (NVDA.US) plans to launch a new generation of compact computers for humanoid robots, Jetson Thor, in the first half of next year; Huawei established the Embodied Intelligence Industry Innovation Center and officially unveiled Huawei's automatic charging robot. Xpeng, Ideal, Dongfeng, Chery and other car companies have also announced that they will enter the field of humanoid robots.
At present, the humanoid robot industry is at a critical juncture from the laboratory to industrialization. Previously, robot companies such as Zhiyuan, Fourier, Unitree, and Agility Robotics have taken the lead in small-scale mass production, and Musk expects that Tesla Optimus will mass produce 1,000 units in 2025, and achieve large-scale production and export sales by 2026, with a demand of 10 billion units, and humanoid robots will enter the first year of mass production.
According to a report released by Goldman Sachs, humanoid robots are expected to be the first to be used in factories in 2024~2027, and the time to enter the consumer market is expected to be between 2028~2031. Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2035, global humanoid robot shipments will reach 1.4 million units, with a market size of about $38 billion. China's humanoid robot industry will enter an explosive period in 2023 and continue to maintain rapid growth, and the scale of Chinese's humanoid robot industry is expected to exceed 20 billion yuan in 2026.
As a future industry with infinite potential, humanoid robots have also received increased policy support. The "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology proposes that by 2025, the humanoid robot innovation system will be initially established, breakthroughs will be made in key technologies, and the whole machine products will reach the international advanced level. In the second half of this year, Shanghai, Chongqing, Anhui, Hangzhou and other places have successively issued relevant policy measures or action plans to support the development of the humanoid robot industry.
The brokerage research report believes that the downstream demand for humanoid robots is strong, which promotes the market space of core components such as motors, reducers, computing modules with high computing power, and tactile sensors, and the process of domestic substitution can be expected. If domestic supply chain enterprises can quickly respond to market demand, they are expected to achieve rapid development in the outbreak of robots.
It is worth noting that the robot dog is expected to be the first to be commercialized in the field, and the robot dog technology is similar to the underlying principle of the humanoid robot, which can provide more data information and supplements. In addition, from the perspective of parts, the joint motors, various sensors, and reducers used by the robot dog are connected with the human form 301413. SZ), Zhaowei Electromechanical (003021. SZ), Best (300580. SZ) and other industrial chain suppliers are expected to seize this wave of benefits and continue to benefit.