A Number Of Old Strong Force, Industrial Robots VS Humanoid Robots, Who Is The Most Valuable Product At Present?

In 1968, General Electric tried to produce the first bipedal robot, which opened the curtain of humanoid robots, 55 years later, humanoid robots blossomed, and embodied intelligence became another wave of the AI revolution. ChatGPT is blowing generative AI winds, and humanoid robots are once again expected to be the carriers of these large language models. Is the humanoid robot the best choice for artificial intelligence carriers, or is it to stir up a concept to facilitate AI shipments and drive the development of real industries such as chip semiconductors?

First of all, the robot observatory believes that humanoid robots are still a track with great potential in the long-term development, but in the short term, industrial robots are still better and certain products.

Manufacturing recovery, industrial robots welcome the turning point

In the first half of this year, the value added of the national manufacturing industry increased by 4.2% year-on-year, 1.3 percentage points faster than the first quarter, and all areas passed the mid-term examination. Among them, a number of economic indicators of the automobile industry hit a record high, the three major indicators of the shipbuilding industry continued to lead the world, a number of important technical products achieved breakthroughs, and the expectation of industrial development continued to improve.

At the same time, the downstream demand of industrial robots was released, and in the first half of 2023, the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 3.74700 million, an increase of 44.12% year-on-year, showing a warming trend; The cumulative load of power batteries was 152.1GWh, an increase of 38.1%. The total new installed capacity of photovoltaic reached 78.42GW, an increase of 153.95%. The cumulative installed capacity of wind power reached 22.99GW, an increase of 77.67%.

The downstream growth rate matches the cumulative output of industrial robots, starting from June, the cumulative output of industrial robots began to grow at a medium and low speed, and with the gradual recovery of consumption, it is expected to accelerate the signs of industrial robots picking up.

Domestic industrial robot manufacturers have proved this sign of recovery, research reports show that Eston business continued rapid growth in the first half of the year, basically in line with expectations, 2023 the company to use the competitive advantage of the whole industry chain, strengthen the core technology and supply chain independent controllable development model; In the semi-annual performance forecast of 2023 released by Huichuan Technology, it is expected to achieve revenue of 119.56 to 12.996 billion yuan, an increase of 15% to 25%, achieve net profit of 1.975 to 2.172 billion yuan, an increase of 0% to 10%, and achieve net profit of 1.744 to 1.919 billion yuan withheld from the mother. Year-on-year growth of 0% ~ 10%.

In addition, not long ago, the United States Group said that the United States Kuka intelligent manufacturing science and Technology Park phase II (hereinafter referred to as "Kuka Phase II") was officially put into operation, and the future planning robot production capacity of 80,000-100,000 units/year. Midea Kuka Phase II project started in April 2021, with an investment of 800 million yuan to complete the construction of 6 plants of about 200,000 square meters, and the plants have been put into use since the end of last year. At present, the park has about 1,000 permanent personnel and more than 50% scientific and technological personnel. By the end of April this year, the park has produced and delivered more than 57,000 industrial robots to customers, with a turnover of more than 8.2 billion yuan and a cumulative output value of nearly 10 billion RMB.

The opportunities and difficulties of humanoid robots

Regarding the development of humanoid robots, the country has already given the green light, according to incomplete statistics, there have been 6 relevant policy documents issued in the first half of this year, close to the total of 8 in the three years from 2019 to 2022.

In addition, in previous years, the release unit is usually the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Science and Technology and other central ministerial level above the unit, and this year mainly to Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and other local governments issued action plans, meaning that the attention of the robot industry has been from the central in the macro planning to local conditions of the landing, is expected to promote the first-tier cities to take the lead in forming an industrial chain, To achieve the robot industry "first rich drive after rich" strategy.

In these documents, the concept of "humanoid robots" is repeatedly mentioned in a targeted way, rather than being referred to as "robots" in general, such as in Beijing's Action Plan, Referring to "international leading humanoid robot products", "supporting enterprises and colleges and universities to carry out humanoid robot machine products, key components and engineering", "accelerate the construction of Beijing humanoid robot industry innovation center", etc., the directorial nature of humanoid robots is quite obvious, which is the first time humanoid robots have been so favored in the policy.

Of course, the humanoid robot is not a simple product that looks like a person, or even can be said to be a master of the robot field, which is the difficulty of the humanoid robot: how to build a useful, low-cost humanoid robot.

Take Tesla's humanoid robot Optimus as an example, it has 28 degrees of freedom in the whole body and 11 degrees of freedom in the hands, and it will learn from humans by using movement, and can already walk, climb stairs, squat, and take objects. Musk said that the robot may be controlled in the future under the price of $20,000 (about 140,000 yuan), but the current core parts account for 70% of the cost of the robot, and these core parts, the share of foreign brands as high as 80%, if not as soon as possible to achieve domestic replacement, will become a big stumbling block to the development of humanoid robots in China.

In addition to the high cost, the use of scenarios will also be an important factor hindering the development of humanoid robots, it is understood that the current humanoid robots are mainly used for education, scientific research, welcome, etc., and there are not too many commercial uses, huge use costs and narrow use scenarios under the combined effect of humanoid robots will face a dilemma.

Therefore, in the short-term development, although mature industrial robots are already a red Sea, the market value and performance are more predictable; Although humanoid robots are blue ocean markets, the current performance is not predictable, suitable for long-term development, and will first enter the industrial scene, and then into the consumer scene. According to the estimation of Northeast Securities, by 2030, the demand for industrial scenes will reach 3.284 million units, and the demand for household and commercial scenes will reach 435,000 units, and the overall market size will be close to 40 billion US dollars.