You are advised to also refer to my post of: “Robot industry current status and application“
Potential market
Digitimes believes that with technological breakthroughs and cost reductions in AI, sensors, materials, etc., coupled with the impact of labor shortages, the global humanoid robot industry is accelerating development, and humanoid robots will usher in explosive maturity in the next five to ten years. It is estimated that by 2035, it will create an output value of nearly US$26 billion.
Current development
In view of the huge application business opportunities, major technology giants and start-ups from the United States, China, Japan, Europe and other countries have invested and actively entered the market. In addition to Nvidia Project GR00T and Tesla Optimus, Meta, OpenAI, Microsoft, Amazon and others have also accelerated their investment.
In addition, Boston Dynamics in the United States, Honda in Japan, Engineered Art in the United Kingdom and others have also been planning humanoid robots for a long time. At the same time, China’s influence should not be underestimated. It can be seen that all parties want to seize the initiative in this wave of automation revolution, but who will be the winner is also a focus of global attention.
Famous vendors
Unitree Robotics
Company Profile
Unitree Robotics was founded by Wang Xingxing in 2016. The founder previously worked at DJI. When it was first established, it had only 4 employees. It took it one year to develop the motor, motor drive and main control, the entire mechanical structure and a completely reconstructed control system, and released the world’s first consumer-grade quadruped robot Laikago (also known as a robot dog), with a retail price of 20,000 RMB.
Investors
At the beginning of 2024, Unitree Robotics announced the completion of a B2 round of financing of nearly 1 billion yuan. Investors included Meituan, Jinshi Investment, Source Code, and old shareholders Shenzhen Capital Group, China Internet Investment, Rongyi, Dunhong and Mida Junshi followed suit. Some analysts believe that Unitree Robotics’ valuation has exceeded RMB 10 billion.
Market share
Unitree Robotics’ sales share in the global quadruped robot market in 2023 is 69.75%, and its market size share is 40.65%.
High cost performance ratio
One of the reasons why Unitree Robotics are so popular is that they are “price-performance” ratio. The lowest price of a Unitree Robotics quadruped robot is currently RMB 9,000, which is very cost-effective compared to other humanoid robots that cost hundreds of thousands or even millions of yuan (Tesla Optimus Prime is estimated to be over US$20,000).
Generations
In 2019, the improved version of Laikago, AlienGo, was released. It was the world’s largest robot at that time in terms of size and volume, and could perform backflips. In the following years, quadruped robots such as UnitreeA1, UnitreeGo1, B1, GO2, B2, and B2-W were released one after another, targeting fields including industrial robots with main uses such as security inspection and public rescue, as well as consumer-grade robots for the general public.
In May 2024, Unitree Robotics released a new product G1. It can cook and fry eggs, crack walnuts with its bare hands, and split a Coke bottle with one palm. Its walking and running gait has been significantly upgraded. It can move freely on the streets and stone ground, and can even run sideways on slopes while maintaining balance. Netizens call it “the most powerful robot on the earth.”
The wheeled version of the B2 robot dog series. In the video, we can see that the B2-W, which can be called a “special dog”, can not only do backflips and quick 360-degree rotation jumps, but can also smoothly cross obstacles with side flips, freely shuttle through rugged woods and steep slopes, and carry an adult man up and down slopes, and can even jump from the roof of a 2.8-meter building without any damage.
According to the official introduction of Unitree Robotics, this robot dog can work continuously for more than 5 hours without any load, with a maximum speed of 20 kilometers per hour, can walk 120 kilometers when upright and with maximum load, and has a maximum cruising range of 50 kilometers when carrying a load of 40 kilograms. According to the official website, this robot dog costs about US$150,000.
Main achievements
Unitree Robotics can imitate Cristiano Ronaldo and Kobe Bryant! NVIDIA’s new model empowers greater action. The demonstration video of its robot dog product B2-W, which spins, jumps and does backflips, caused a sensation around the world, and even Tesla CEO Elon Musk retweeted the video.
Unitree Robotics’ robots will appear on China Central Television’s Spring Festival Gala in 2025, performing the Yangko dance. The flexible robotic arm waved the handkerchief, and the series of movements amazed the outside world.
Deep Robotics
Founder
Dr. Zhu Qiuguo, the founder of Deep Robotics, graduated from Zhejiang University. He completed his undergraduate and doctoral research at Zhejiang University under the tutelage of Professor Chu Jian and Professor Xiong Rong. He mainly focused on the field of humanoid robots, especially the research on legged robot motion control based on model-based control (MPC). In 2011, Zhu Qiuguo graduated with a doctorate and chose to stay at the school to join the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Control of Zhejiang University, where he engaged in research on humanoid robots, bionic robots, machine intelligence, etc. He successively presided over the development of the four-legged robots “Jueying” and “Chitu”, and presided over the development of the humanoid robot “Wukong-II”.
Company Establishment
In 2017, Deep Robotics was officially established. Just a few months after its establishment, the team launched the first generation of quadruped robot “Jueying” developed independently.
Product Generation
In 2021, Deep Robotics’s Jueying X20 quadruped robot for industry applications was officially launched, and it took the lead in commercializing it in scenarios such as electricity, metallurgy, mining, construction, and rescue.
In 2023, the “Jueying X30” quadruped robot was released, expanding the operating temperature to the range of -20℃ to 55℃ for the first time, becoming the industry’s first quadruped robot capable of operating in extreme environments.
At the 2024 World Robot Conference, DEEP Robotics launched its first commercial humanoid robot Dr.01.
Dr.01 demonstrated excellent stability and balance on site, including going up and down stairs, walking on sliding steel bars randomly distributed on the ground, and quickly regaining balance and continuing to walk in the face of push and pull interference from staff or even sudden attacks from behind.
Valuation and Financing
Deep Robotics has completed six rounds of financing, with the latest round of financing taking place in August 2024.
In August 2024, Deep Robotics completed its B+ round of financing. The amount was not disclosed. Investors included Huajian Function Investment, Hansong Asset Management, Shenzhen Zhicheng Industrial Investment, Moganshan Hi-Tech Investment and other institutions. This round of financing will help Deep Robotics further expand its product line, enhance its R&D capabilities, and accelerate its market layout.
Figure AI
Compaby profile
Figure AI is an American humanoid robot company founded in 2022 by Archer Aviation, Vettery, and Brett Adcock. The company’s team consists of experts from the fields of robotics, artificial intelligence, sensing, perception and navigation, integrating the experience of well-known companies such as Boston Dynamics and Tesla.
Product
In 2022, the company launched its prototype Figure 01, a bipedal robot designed for manual labor and initially targeted at the logistics and warehousing sectors.
AI Model
Figure AI released the universal embodied intelligence model Helix on February 20, 2025; a large end-side model capable of “dual-machine collaboration”. Helix is the first vision-language-action (VLA) model that enables high-frequency, continuous control of the entire upper humanoid robot body (including head, torso, wrists and fingers). By directly converting the rich semantic knowledge captured in the visual language model into robot actions, we overcome several long-standing challenges in the field of humanoid robotics – at least without the need for extensive training for every action of the robot.
Helix allows humanoid robots to listen to human commands and help with household chores. Figure CEO Ed Coker said the new model’s mission is to solve the problem of general robotics technology and achieve “a robot in every home.” In the footage released by Figure, a real person asked two humanoid robots to sort out a bag of food purchased from a supermarket. After observing the environment, the robots put most of the food, including eggs, into the refrigerator and put an apple on a plate.
This technology marks the beginning of robots entering the home. The robot in the picture is equipped with Figure’s new “visual language action AI model” Helix, which can pick up objects and collaborate with other robots. Figure points out that they can handle almost any small household item.
Gorgeous investors
Notable investors in Figure AI include Jeff Bezos, Microsoft, Nvidia, Intel and the startup financing arms of Amazon and OpenAI. , Figure AI raised $675 million at a $2.6 billion valuation.
Outlook and vision
Brett Adcock, founder of Figure AI, once said:
- Robots will be in every home within 3 years.
- The founders predict that there will be as many as 10 billion humanoid robots on the market by 2040.
Famous customers
Figure announces deal with BMW! Humanoid robots will be used in U.S. factories to make coffee on their own. In August 2024, BMW said that Figure 02 was in trial operation at its Spartanburg plant in the United States.
Optimus
Tesla Bot (Optimus)
Brett Adcock, founder of the Figure AI, also mentioned the Optimus humanoid robot and expressed that he was very excited about Musk’s achievements in the past two or three decades. He also believed that Musk will become Figure AI’s real competitor in the field of robotics.
Optimus in my book
In sections 5-8 of my book “The Rules of 10 Baggers“, I introduce Tesla-related companies in great detail, among which Tesla’s Tesla Bot (Optimus) humanoid robot is a major focus. In order to avoid duplication of content, the content mentioned in the book will not be repeated here.
Boston Dynamics
Company Profile
Boston Dynamics is an American engineering and robotics design company that became independent from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1992.
ownership changed hands again and again
In December 2013, Boston Dynamics was acquired by Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet. In June 2017, SoftBank acquired Boston Dynamics from Alphabet’s Google. In June 2021, Hyundai announced that it would officially acquire a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank.
Most famous product
The company’s famous products include the Boston Mechanical Dog, a four-legged robot developed for the U.S. military with funding from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
Agility Robotics
Digit Robot
The flagship product of Agility Robotics is the “Digit” (meaning digital) robot. Its ordinary body is 175 centimeters tall, but it has a pair of animal-like hind legs. This allows it to squat, pick up items from the floor, and lift them to a height of nearly 180 centimeters.
Goal
Agility Robotics has great confidence in “Digit”. They are also expanding their robot production plant and have the ability to produce more than 10,000 robots per year.
Customers
As early as 2019, it was trialled in cooperation with the Ford Group to deliver packages to homes.
In 2023, “Diget” will launch an experimental business in the warehouse where the women’s clothing brand Spanx handles orders. The robot recognizes the QR code to determine where to move the boxes and where to put them down.
As part of Amazon’s automated warehousing plan, in March 2024, Amazon adopted Agility Robotics ‘ Digit robot, which can move boxes with its hands and walk on its feet. It is very similar to scenes in science fiction movies. Digit can lift 16 KG weight package can be driven in almost all directions, including up and down stairs and uneven terrain.
1X Technologies
Humanoid Robot Neo Gamma
1X Technologies, a Norwegian humanoid robot company, has released their humanoid robot product – Neo Gamma. According to 1X Technology, Neo Gamma is a “next generation” humanoid robot targeting the home market.
This robot is mainly used to perform some household tasks, such as making coffee, washing clothes and vacuuming. In order to appear more friendly, it is designed with a knitted nylon coat to reduce the harm to humans when touching it.
Neo Gamma is a fully humanoid robot whose palms are designed with simulated hands that imitate the human skeletal structure and can perform operations such as holding and pressing.
Clone Robotics
Company Profile
Clone Robotics, a Polish robotics company, was founded in 2021. Their goal is to create a bionic robot that is completely consistent with humans. Not only does it not have iron hands and feet, but it also adds muscles and bones to the robot’s torso and even imitates the human heart to achieve the purpose of human cloning.
Protoclone V1 humanoid robot
The company showcased a robot called Protoclone V1 that has the ability to simulate human movements. Although this robot cannot actually perform housework at present, its anthropomorphic appearance and movements are already impressive. The company plans to launch a limited edition Clone Alpha in 2025, with the future goal of enabling the robot to complete household chores such as laundry, dishes, cooking simple meals, and even vacuuming carpets.
Protoclone V1 is a technological gem that features a structure made up of a 3D-printed polymer skeleton and 1,000 strands of Myofiber artificial muscle. These muscles can contract under pressure to simulate human joint movement and are connected to the skeleton through “tendons”.
The robot’s skeleton is embedded with microchannels for a water-based cooling system, and a “sweating” design prevents Myofiber from overheating during high-intensity operations. This bio-inspired heat dissipation solution is practical and efficient, allowing this high-power actuator to operate stably for a long time. With over 200 degrees of freedom and a sensor network, it can track every movement in real time and mimic the flexible and fluid movements of humans.
Nvidia
Company view on humanoid robots
Jensen Huang recently said in an interview that robotics technology will make major breakthroughs in the next 2-3 years, predicting that humanoid robots will become as common as today’s cars. He said that humanoid robots will be ubiquitous in 100 years and may become the most prolific machine system in human history.
Nvidia’s efforts on humanoid robots
At the GTC conference in March 2024, Huang Renxun demonstrated a variety of humanoid robots and announced the Project GR00T plan, which combines the latest architecture of the AI chip Blackwell through the new computing platform Jetson Thor, and the AI chip specially designed for The basic model of robotic arm design, Isaac Manipulator, and the AI visual recognition Isaac Perceptor for autonomous mobile robots (AMR) improve the robot’s cognitive ability of human behavior to perform complex tasks. And enhance the naturalness of human-machine interaction.
Humanoid robot
Robots are a combination of AI, sensors, and actuators. Nvidia has established a research department, GEAR, dedicated to realizing intelligent applications across multiple modalities and multiple scenarios. It will accelerate research and development that can adapt to various environments, possess a wide range of skills, and be able to operate in virtual environments. and intelligent agents that operate effectively in the real world, promoting the continued progress and development of the entire artificial intelligence and robotics industry.
The company is delving deeper into the robot game, launching a new base model of its humanoid robot called Project GR00T. The basic model is an artificial intelligence system trained with a large amount of data and can be used for various tasks from generating sentences to videos and images. According to Nvidia, the GR00T project will help humanoid robots understand natural language and imitate movements by observing human behavior – quickly learning coordination, flexibility and other skills in order to navigate, adapt to and interact with the real world.
Jetson Orin Nano Super
At the end of 2024, Nvidia released a new palm-sized computer “Jetson Orin Nano Super”, which is a generative new platform computer used in AI robots. This computer developed for robots has a computing power of 70 trillion operations per second and consumes only 25 watts of power. It is one of the edge computing devices with the best performance and energy consumption ratio on the market. The device can run core technologies within the NVIDIA ecosystem, including CUDA, cuDNN, and TensorRT, and supports Large Language Models (LLM), allowing developers to easily deploy generative AI applications and advanced robotics systems.
In addition, the unit price of Jetson Orin Nano Super has dropped to only US$249, which not only lowers the threshold for AI hardware, but also promotes the application of generative AI and robotics technology in a wider range of scenarios. According to market rumors, Nvidia will also release the next-generation compact computer “Jetson Thor” for humanoid robots in the first half of this year, with the goal of taking the lead in the upcoming robot boom. It is expected that as the cost of building robot brains drops significantly, the development of robots will enter a new milestone; Nvidia is expected to continue to maintain its leadership position with its powerful computing power and open ecosystem advantages.
Meta Platforms
Building a team
In addition to Nvidia and Tesla, Meta’s aggressive momentum has also attracted attention. Meta recently established a new team in its Reality Labs division dedicated to the development of humanoid robots. The goal is to develop AI robots that can perform various physical tasks and make full use of the technical advantages of its own large-scale language model Llama.
Home Robots focused
According to an internal memo, Meta’s newly formed robotics team will initially focus on home robots, with the goal of creating AI humanoid robots that can help people with daily chores.
Find two leaders
Because Meta started late in the field of robots, the media pointed out that in order to accelerate the development of robots and catch up with this future technological trend, Meta has approached Unitree Robotics and Figure AI.
Artificial intelligence
All robots, without exception, require the integration of artificial intelligence to varying degrees to enhance the robot’s capabilities. It is not an exaggeration to say that the degree of integration of artificial intelligence determines the capabilities of a robot.
Closing words
Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted in his first earnings call in April 2025 that despite Tesla’s “Optimus” robot leading the way, China may eventually dominate the industry. He said: “I am a little worried that the companies from second to tenth may all be from China.”
Related articles
- “Top Chinese Robotics Companies“
- “Humanoid Robots current status and vendors“
- “Top 10 Robotics Companies in the World“
- “Robot industry current status and application“
- “Nvidia’s new business set to grow its share price“
- “Chinese tech singularity or just a flash in the pan? From DeepSeek, Huawei, TikTok, to Game Science“
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