With the upcoming shareholder meeting of Tesla, the popularity of humanoid robots is heating up again. As the "jewel on the crown" of the manufacturing industry, robots are increasingly playing a pivotal role in industrial production. Empowered by AI technology, robots have undergone a qualitative leap, acquiring more and more skills, evolving into an intelligent productivity tool. Among them, humanoid robots have attracted attention for their ability to provide services, companionship, and other multiple values.

Currently, artificial intelligence is moving towards general intelligence. Before that, the robotics industry has given birth to two types of robots that work in specific scenarios: programmed robots and adaptive robots. Meanwhile, AI large models have also been able to interact with humans in the digital world, easily answering questions or drawing charts.

However, if we want artificial intelligence to help us with housework and moving things in the real world, recognizing information and acting reasonably like humans, we need to load a series of core technologies such as large models into robots. Thus, the intelligent humanoid robot with an approachable appearance has stepped onto the stage of the times.

01

Continuous technological progress, with giants entering the market one after another

On May 20th of this year, Tesla released a promotional video for the 2024 shareholder meeting on the social platform X, with Optimus appearing frequently. On May 13th, Unitree released the humanoid intelligent entity UnitreeG1, starting with a price of 99,000 yuan, kickstarting the commercialization of domestic humanoid robots.

In fact, as early as October 2022, the first humanoid robot prototype was unveiled at Tesla AI Day. Since then, Tesla has updated its products at a rate of almost every six months, releasing the second-generation Optimus robot in December 2023, achieving capabilities such as fast walking, lifting objects, and picking up eggs. Humanoid robots are expected to become an important carrier in the intelligent era.

It can be foreseen that the robotics industry is entering a technological "singularity" moment. In addition to Tesla, global technology giants such as NVIDIA and Microsoft are also deploying in the field of humanoid robots, and companies like Huawei, BYD, and CATL have also begun to focus on this area, promoting rapid progress in the industry.

According to news, the 2024 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and the 2024 World Robotics Conference, major events in the industry, will be held in Beijing and Shanghai in July and August this year, respectively. Under the dense catalysis of the industry, the commercialization of humanoid robots has gradually become clearer. The industry predicts that Tesla's robots will follow the path of iterative shaping - factory training - small-batch sales - multi-scenario general extension - achieving large-scale sales; open-source humanoid robots may gradually achieve commercialization through the path of "basic version training - open-source iteration - sale to secondary developers - application scenario landing and large-scale sales".

02

Vast market space,蕴含成长潜力

Humanoid robots are composed of a large number of components such as servo motors, reducers, controllers, sensors, and battery packs, and their commercial mass production relies on mature supply chain cooperation.

As the world's largest industrial robot market, China's robotics industry ranks first globally in terms of scale. At the same time, China has a complete automotive production chain and a sophisticated supply system for automation and related general-purpose components. Domestic suppliers have global competitive advantages in large-scale production, upstream collaborative research and development, cost control, and can further apply these advantages to humanoid robots. The development opportunities for the industrial chain are worth looking forward to.

According to estimates, the new market space for global humanoid robots in 2030 could reach 1 trillion yuan. Among them, China's new market space for humanoid robots is expected to exceed 500 billion yuan.

Figure: Forecast of the future new space for humanoid robots (Unit: billion yuan)

Source: Western Securities

03

Policy opportunities boost the industrial implementation

The "Guiding Opinions on the Innovative Development of Humanoid Robots" issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in November 2023 begins with the statement: "Humanoid robots are expected to become disruptive products following computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles, profoundly changing human production and lifestyles and reshaping the global industrial development landscape." In the previous year, a large number of policy documents such as the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Robotics Industry" have been issued, and China is actively deploying related robotics industry chains.

It can be expected that with the support of relevant industrial policies, on the one hand, domestic supply chains are expected to accelerate their integration into the supply chains of global robotics leaders. On the other hand, China's core industrial segments such as independent robot machinery, control, perception, decision-making algorithms, and computing chips are expected to undergo rapid development, with the proportion of value expected to continue to increase.

Industry insiders introduce that robots have crossed the early research and development stage, achieving widespread applications in areas such as university research, intelligent manufacturing, and commercial services. Currently, humanoid robots are in a critical stage of moving from the laboratory to industrialization, and are expected to become the next phenomenal disruptive product following computers, smartphones, and new energy vehicles.

Under the influence of multiple factors such as technological breakthroughs, the entry of technology giants, and increased policy support, the application scenarios of the robotics industry are expected to gradually expand in the future, and the investment value of related indices has attracted much attention.

The ChinaSecurities Robotics Industry Index covers leading companies in China's robotics industry at the current stage as well as emerging forces in the early stages of growth. The top three component industries of the index are machinery and equipment, computers, and power equipment, corresponding to core areas such as robot body parts, AI algorithm control modules, and battery power modules. It can reflect the overall performance of listed companies in China's robotics industry. Currently, products such as E Fund ChinaSecurities Robotics Industry ETF (159530) are tracking this index.

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