China Showcases Advanced Humanoid Robots at WRC

China’s top robotics makers showcased their latest humanoid robots and robot dogs at the 2024 World Robot Conference, expressing optimism that these human-like and dog-like robots will enter every home in the future, even though mass production and deployment remain some distance away.

At the exhibition venue, humanoid robots were seen performing simple tasks such as picking up items, walking through obstacles, and mimicking human gestures and expressions.

Sotirios Stasinopoulos, Product Manager for Humanoid Robots at publicly listed UBTECH Robotics, thinks that the humanoid robot market could grow to be ten times the size of the EV market in the future, predicting that every household will eventually have 1-2 humanoid robots.

"As most strategists also confirm, not only within China, but internationally, the humanoid robot market is going to explode and is going to become maybe ten times the size of the EV market. So we are looking at numbers that are maybe close to one or two robots, maybe per person as it moves forward. So we have great potential there," he said.

Currently, humanoid robots are primarily used for simple inspection and internal logistics tasks in industrial production.

Beyond the industrial sector, some hotels in China are already using mobile delivery robots.

Affordable, smarter and more agile humanoid robots highlight the ongoing 2024 World Robot Conference (WRC) in Beijing, which Chinese exhibitors are showing their advancement through applying powerful large language models and upgrading key hardware and software.

At the WRC, Chinese startup Unitree Robotics presents its lightweight G1 humanoid robot unveiled in May and now put in mass production.

What sets it apart from other humanoid robots is it's surprisingly low price of about 13,880 US dollars, even lower than Tesla's Optimus which is around 20,000 U.S. dollars.