LimX Dynamics, based in Shenzhen, presents one of its humanoid robots.
Limx Dynamics
BEIJING — ChatGPT-style artificial intelligence is accelerating research and bringing humanoid robots closer to reality in China, home to many factories around the world.
AI has been around for decades. What has changed with the emergence of OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot is the ability of AI to better understand and generate content in a human-like manner. Although the US-based technology is not officially available in China, local companies such as Baidu have released chatbots and similar AI models.
In robotics, the development of generative AI can help machines understand and perceive their environment, said Li Zhang, chief operating officer of Shenzhen-based LimX Dynamics.
About three months after joining the two-year-old startup, Li said he had lowered his expectations for how long it would take LimX to produce a humanoid robot capable of not only working in factories, but also helping in households.
Li initially expected the entire process to take eight to 10 years, but now expects some use cases to be ready in five to seven years. “After working for a few months, I saw how the capabilities of various tools were improved thanks to AI,” he said in Mandarin, translated by CNBC.
“It accelerated our entire research and development cycle,” he said.
Businesses are rushing to this opportunity. OpenAI itself supports the humanoid robot startupswhile that of Elon Musk You’re here develops his own, called Optimus.
Electric car giant BYD last year invested in Shanghai-based Agibot just months after its founding, according to PitchBook.
And on a high level, Chinese state media in November published a photo of Chinese President Xi Jinping observing a humanoid robot at an exhibition center during his first trip to Shanghai since the pandemic. The robot was developed by Fourier Intelligence.
Before humanoid robots reach homes, as LimX wants, factories can provide a lucrative, closed scenario in which to deploy them.
China overtook Japan in 2013 as the world’s largest installer of industrial robots and now accounts for more than 50% of the global total, according to Stanford’s latest AI Index report.
Electronics, automobile, metallurgy and machinery are the top three industrial robot installation sectors in China, the report said.
Impact on human jobs
However, when it comes to completely replacing human workers, advances in AI alone are not enough.
Even though AI allows a robot to think and make decisions on an equal footing with humans, mechanical limitations are one of the main reasons why humanoids cannot yet replace human workers, a said Li of LimX.
One of LimX’s backers, Future Capital, also invested in a company called Pan Motor, which specializes in motors for humanoids.
Generative AI does not directly help the robotics movement, pointed out Eric Xia, a partner at Future Capital, an investor in LimX. But “advancements in large language models can help humanoid robots with advanced task planning,” he said in Chinese, translated by CNBC.
Other investors in LimX include Lenovo Capital.
The transition to factory robots may accelerate once the cost per robot falls.
Steve Hoffman, president of a startup accelerator called Founders Space, said he was working with a Chinese startup called Fastra, which he said could begin mass production of robots within a year. He said he spent time in China this year teaching local companies how to integrate generative AI.
“We have already received six orders from research institutes,” he said, noting that the startup aims to reduce the cost per robot to between $50,000 and $100,000 upon deployment.
“If we can get to a price of $50,000, we can sell a lot of robots,” he said, noting that the robots’ batteries can be recharged while they work, 24 hours a day. could pay for the robot in a year.”
In pharmaceutical research, generative AI can reduce costs, without reducing human labor.
“You don’t reduce the costs of our business by having fewer people. In fact, you reduce costs by doing fewer experiments that fail,” said Alex Zhavoronkov, chairman, executive director and CEO of ‘Insilico Medicine, which has offices in Hong Kong. , New York and other parts of the world.
He pointed out that big pharmaceutical companies typically have to spend thousands of dollars to replicate a molecule for testing – and run a few thousand such tests per program. He claimed that with the help of AI, Insilico only needed to synthesize about 70 molecules per program.
The company published a paper in Nature in March claiming to have reached phase 2 clinical trials for an AI-generated drug.
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