This episode of “Dialogue” invites representatives from the humanoid robot sports event and the “creators” of three participating robots, bringing us closer to the cutting-edge humanoid robots and their developers, exploring the current development status and future possibilities of these new members of human society.
They are:
Jiang GuangzhiSecretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Economy and Information Technology
Xiong YoujunCEO of the Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center and Head of the Tiangong Team
Cheng HaoChairman of Accelerated Evolution Robotics
Jiang ZheyuanFounder of Songyan Power (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd.
What is the significance of the inaugural World Humanoid Robot Sports Games?
“Robots are a culmination of technological innovation and a hallmark of new productive forces,” Jiang Guangzhi explained. “The fact that robots are stepping into the arena is a crucial step for them to enter our production and daily lives, akin to their integration into human society.” He stated that Beijing, as the world’s first city to host both Summer and Winter Olympics, might leverage the humanoid robot sports event to become a “three-Olympic city.”
Jiang Guangzhi candidly admitted,“What will the level of robots be like in the first humanoid robot sports event? How many competition events can they complete? How complex of actions can they perform?”“We are not very confident either.”The organizers hope that “the mere participation and entry into the arena is a victory, and we encourage more robot companies, products, and researchers to join this grand event.”
The inaugural sports event includes26 events, divided into competitive, performance, scenario, and peripheral competitions, representing a comprehensive exploration and demonstration of robot functionality, skills, and intelligence.Zhao Dongwei, Chairman of Beijing Beiao Group Co., Ltd., introduced the considerations behind the event setup:“First, based on the existing capabilities of robots, such as running and jumping, their athletic abilities are sufficient. Second, considering real-world needs, such as sorting medications in a hospital setting, even the six-layer storage shelf for medications is modeled after a real hospital scenario. Robots must first recognize prescriptions and then autonomously retrieve the corresponding medications from a specific shelf layer. We hope that by creating such realistic scenarios, robots can practice and ultimately promote the technology’s implementation.”
The Path of Humanoid Robot Entrepreneurship
Entering Early and Advancing with Determination
In 2023, Cheng Hao’s Accelerated Evolution and Jiang Zheyuan’s Songyan Power were established one after another. At that time, the popularity of humanoid robots was not high. However, Cheng Hao stated that entrepreneurial teams need to “learn to get ahead”: “How do entrepreneurial teams compete with large companies? The core is to enter the market earlier and advance with more determination. In 2023, we witnessed the emergence of large models, and the interaction and decision-making capabilities of robots underwent significant changes, even reaching a turning point, which is why we decided to start.” Cheng Hao and many colleagues gave up high salaries to pursue entrepreneurship. “Because we believe that humanoid robots or the entire embodied intelligence industry will experience long-term rapid development over the next 10, 20, or even 30 years.”
Unlike Cheng Hao’s more mature team, the N2 robot from Songyan Power started as a student team. Founder Jiang Zheyuan originally pursued a direct PhD at Tsinghua University but chose to drop out to start a business after discovering three major opportunities for the transformation of humanoid robots.
“The first opportunity is the transformation of humanoid robot hardware. Around 2019, an ultra-low-cost collinear joint solution was open-sourced, which is bound to become mainstream in humanoid robots. The second opportunity lies in the transformation of motion control algorithms. AI-based algorithms like ‘deep reinforcement learning’ are gradually being applied in the control of legged robots. The third opportunity arose after the advent of GPT, where large models and robotic upper limb control were combined. Now, when you talk to a robot, and it hands you a glass of water, it seems quite normal, but at that time, achieving this effect truly shocked us.”
Human-Robot Integration
A New Blueprint
Xiong Youjun’s Tiangong team participated in numerous competition events. After the competition, Tiangong made all technical data, from hardware design schematics to software code, open source. Earlier, the team also opened the algorithm framework for training marathon competition motion control.“This dataset has now been downloaded and used over 100,000 times,” Xiong Youjun shared. “We are also building a testing and detection platform to serve the entire industry after opening up, truly allowing the embodied intelligence industry to thrive. The number of humanoid robots may indeed exceed that of humans. The future society will certainly be one of human-robot integration, where humanoid robots will become our friends, partners, and even family members.”
Xiong Youjun explained:“There is a consensus in the industry—the application of humanoid robots will proceed in three steps.First, complete relatively simple repetitive tasks in controlled environments; second, enter the commercial service sector; and finally, integrate into households, starting with robots that provide emotional value, such as companionship and care, and ultimately performing various household chores.”
Jiang Guangzhi stated:“Our next focus in industrial policy will concentrate on three aspects: first, increasing support for innovation, especially in building high-level innovation platforms; second, creating a favorable industrial ecosystem in Beijing, particularly around manufacturing complete machines and component systems, forming a complete robot system; and third, further expanding applications, making Beijing a globally recognized benchmark city for robot applications, allowing more robots to play roles in streets, factories, and shopping malls, instilling confidence in more people entering the robot industry, and inspiring more children to love science and innovation from a young age.”
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