- Nio has assembled a team of around 20 people to research an AI robot dog project, headed by a former Momenta algorithm expert, according to local media.
- Nio is now more cautious than before about a new field.
Nio (NYSE: NIO) has assembled a team of about 20 people to research an artificial intelligence (AI) robot dog project, local media 21jingji said in a report today.
The team is headed by Xu Kang, a former algorithm expert at autonomous driving startup Momenta who joined Nio’s self-driving team a few years ago, according to the report.
Nio is now more cautious than before about the new field, the report noted.
Compared to bipedal robots, quadrupedal robotic dogs are more stable, flexible, load-bearing, and better suited for complex terrain, the report said, adding that control systems for such products are relatively simple and don’t require nimble hands.
With their small size, flexible and stable locomotion and relatively low investment, quadrupedal robot dogs are expected to be the first to gain large-scale use, and play a role in fields including electric power inspection, fire rescue, and national defense, with a potential market size of RMB hundreds of billions, the report said.
Although the development cost of robot dogs is lower than that of AI robots, the overall development of embodied AI is still in its early stages, the report noted.
“Smart cars can be seen as robots with limited scenarios, yet the development of smart driving needs more time. Embodied intelligence with a wider range of usage scenarios must be much harder to come by,” an industry insider said.
Embodied AI, such as robots and robotic dogs, is seen as a hot area where AI will come into play. The use of end-to-end large AI models for smart driving in the past year has also opened practitioners’ eyes to opportunities in the embodied AI space, the report said.
In the automotive industry, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) is a leader in embodied AI, unveiling its first humanoid robot, Optimus, at the AI Day 2022 event.
In China, He Xiaopeng, chairman and CEO of Xpeng (NYSE: XPEV), formally ventured into robotics with the acquisition of robotics startup Dogotix in December 2020 and the subsequent establishment of Xpeng Robotics, the 21jingji report noted.
On September 7, 2021, Xpeng Robotics unveiled smart robotic pony, claiming that it has an automotive-grade intelligent driving system that recognizes environments and objects, builds maps, and plans paths through cameras and LiDAR.
At the AI Day event on November 6, 2024, Xpeng unveiled Iron, a humanoid robot that stands 178 cm tall and weighs 70 kg, close to a real person.
Iron was already working in Xpeng’s factories. It would also enter sales stores, offices, homes and other scenarios in the future, the company said at the time.
Late last month, Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Li Auto (NASDAQ: LI), said at an AI Talk event that the company’s future foray into humanoid robots was “100 percent in probability,” but that the time was not now.
Li positioned Li Auto as an AI company, saying its goal is not to make cars intelligent, but to use cars as a vehicle for AI and to promote AI to every family.
More local companies are targeting new opportunities brought by AI.
GAC Group unveiled GoMate on December 26, saying it is the third generation of its in-house developed embodied AI robot.
The humanoid’s form can be switched between quadrupedal and bipedal modes. Its height is about 1.4 meters in quadrupedal mode and up to 1.75 meters in bipedal mode.
Also on December 26, local media outlet Meiren Auto cited multiple sources to say that BYD (HKG: 1211, OTCMKTS: BYDDY) had set up a dedicated team under its 15th business unit to develop embodied AI products, including humanoid robots.
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