Beijing's Zhongguancun district is known as "China's Silicon Valley." On a hot and humid July afternoon, the laboratory of the robotics startup Galaxea AI entered an unassuming building, which was in disarray. At this time, a young employee turned on a robotic arm with a base and turned on the lights. Another employee captured images of two arms extending from crumpled bed sheets to make the bed.

■ Ambitious Goals Set by a Two-Year-Old Startup This image will be used to train artificial intelligence (AI) models for the R1 series of wheeled humanoid robots (humanoid robots) on Star Chart. The 1.7-meter-tall R1 is designed to support factory work and is expected to be deployed in homes in the future. In the competitive industry of developing next-generation robots that are expected to revolutionize people's lives, this two-year-old company has ambitious goals. "This field is actually developing at a very fast pace," said Xu Huazhe, co-founder and co-scientific director of Star Chart. "We must work harder and act quickly to demonstrate our progress," he said in a modest meeting room.

■ Plans to Introduce the R1 Robot Assembly Line According to Xu, the company name "Star Chart" is a combination of "galaxy" and "sea," symbolizing the founders' wish to "push through thorns and aim for the stars." The company was also selected as one of the "100 Companies to Watch" by Forbes Asia last year. According to the quiet engineer who studied at Stanford University, the company first plans to implement the R1 on factory assembly lines on a large scale within three years. Automation has already played an important role in manufacturing. According to data from the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), based in Frankfurt, Germany, China is the world leader in industrial robotics, ranking among the countries with the highest robot density per 10,000 employees along with South Korea and Singapore. The R1 humanoid robot of Star Chart is intended to take on repetitive tasks requiring precision and dexterity in the process of manually assembling a large number of parts, such as in car manufacturing.

■ Future Vision for Home Use

Xu further stated that his robot would not only start being used in factories within 10 years but also in people's homes. The company's robots are also used for cooking, cleaning, and making beds. Investors have also bet on this vision, as Star Chart raised over $100 million (approximately 14.6 billion yen) in its A-round financing in July, with a valuation of $700 million (approximately 102.2 billion yen). This round of financing included investments from Today Capital in Hong Kong, Ant Group, a Chinese fintech company, and Longzhi Investment, the investment department of the food delivery giant Meituan.

According to Xu, Star Chart plans to announce its first bipedal humanoid robot next year and is preparing for a new funding round valued at $1 billion (approximately 14.6 billion yen).

The company started selling the R1, a two-armed humanoid robot of human size, at the end of last year, with prices ranging from 320,000 yuan to 459,900 yuan (approximately 6.4 million to 9.2 million yen), depending on options, such as installing a five-finger robotic hand instead of a gripper with two jaws. Star Chart plans to ship up to 1,000 robots by the end of this year, with half of them in China and the rest sold to overseas markets including the United States. Xu positioned the United States as "an important market for international expansion."

■ Global Market Size Projections and Competitive Trends

Although this shipment target seems modest, Hsu envisions a broad future. Phyllis Wang, an analyst at UBS Securities in Shanghai, stated that although the number of shipments this year was only 15,000 units, it is expected that the global number of humanoid robots will reach 2 million by 2035. She mentioned in a research report in July that by 2050, it will surge to 300 million units, with the market size, including humanoid components and software, expected to reach $170 billion (approximately 24.8 trillion yen).

However, in the competition of this market, Star Chart cannot avoid direct confrontation with domestic and foreign rivals. One of them is Tesla's humanoid robot "Optimus." Elon Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter) in July that the robot will start serving food at a futuristic restaurant in Los Angeles starting next year. In a call with investors in April, he emphasized that "Optimus will be the biggest company in this market," but expressed concern that "the second to tenth largest companies will be Chinese companies."

■ AI Model G0 and Technology Development Direction

Xu believes that a team of top scientists and engineers—dedicated to "creating better robots"—at Star Chart will lead the way in this field. Although the company is still in development, it launched an AI model called "G0" in August. The company states that using this model will enable robots to improve their understanding and reasoning capabilities for voice commands, as well as perform relatively complex tasks such as making the bed. G0 is built upon a dataset of robot behavior collected by Star Chart, which includes real-world environments such as homes, stores, and offices. The company's vision is to lay the foundation for global humanoid development and plans to open this dataset to the outside world.

However, Wang of UBS Securities warned that it may take a considerable amount of time for robot technology to reach a level that can truly assist people in daily life.

Star Chart's clients include the American AI company Physical Intelligence and Stanford University, which uses the R1 to train people to perform tasks such as taking out the trash and cleaning the bathroom. Xu did not reveal the names of industrial clients due to confidentiality agreements, but stated that Chinese automakers will begin using the R1 to transport parts in their factories by the end of this year. Star Chart's 2024 sales figures were not recorded, but it is expected that sales this year will reach tens of millions of yuan (hundreds of billions of yen), with the goal of achieving profitability by 2026.

■ Competition and National Support in the Chinese Market

Meanwhile, Lake Knudsen, a robotics analyst at Florida-based SemiAnalysis, pointed out that although Star Chart has an excellent team, "the competition in China is very fierce." Li Minsoon, an analyst at Bank of America Global Research based in Hong Kong, stated that there are estimated to be 30 to 40 humanoid manufacturers in China. He compared the industry to the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) industry a decade ago. At that time, the government encouraged electric vehicles as a new growth pillar, and many companies were vying for market share.

In the context of an aging population and a shortage of labor, the Chinese government is now promoting the development of humanoid robots through state-led investments. In March this year, the government announced the establishment of a $13.8 billion (approximately 2 trillion yen) fund to invest in high-tech industries, including robotics. Additionally, to familiarize the 1.4 billion people with robots, the government is organizing various activities. One of these is the "World Humanoid Robot Championship" held for the first time in Beijing in August, where robots from 16 countries participated in competitions such as football, taekwondo, and dance.

Suzanne Bierer, secretary-general of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), said, "The Chinese government is preparing for a future where humans and humanoid robots live together."

■ Background of the Founding Team and Organizational Structure

Xu serves as an assistant professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, teaching robotics and artificial intelligence, while also managing his own startup. "He is considered one of the top scientists in this field," said Sean Wang, a partner at Long-Z Investments, a subsidiary of Meituan.

The four founding members of Star Chart play their respective roles in the company. Xu and another co-scientific director Zhao Xing, 34, are responsible for developing AI models and training humanoid robots in Beijing. Meanwhile, 33-year-old CEO Gao Jiyang and 31-year-old Chief Operating Officer Li Tianwei are in charge of production at the Suzhou factory and driving commercialization.

According to Xu, Star Chart currently has 120 employees. It plans to expand to 200 employees by the end of this year. The CEO of the company, Gao, previously worked as an AI software engineer at autonomous driving companies such as Waymo in the United States and Momenta in Beijing, China. He said that one day he proposed the idea of starting a company. Xu said that at the time, he felt that with the rapid advancement of AI, "it was the right time."

Their first meeting was as undergraduate students in electrical engineering at Tsinghua University, with Gao being one year older than Xu. Xu grew up in Changchun, an industrial city in northeastern China, earned a doctorate in AI research from the University of California, Berkeley, and then spent a year as a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, studying computer vision-related technologies. Subsequently, in 2022, after obtaining a faculty position at Tsinghua University, he returned to South Korea, and the following year, he and Gao founded Star Chart.

■ Comparison with Competitors Unitree Robotics

On the other hand, one of the company's main competitors in Japan is Unitree Robotics, a humanoid manufacturer valued at $1.7 billion (approximately 248.2 billion yen). This Hangzhou-based company recently gained attention for its affordable humanoid robot (approximately 860,000 yen), which still has voice and image recognition functions. Xu expects that the cost of Star Chart's robots will decrease in the future as production scales up, making them available for general consumers.

He believes that there are too many humanoid companies in China today and predicts that a wave of elimination will occur within the next three to five years. "After the bubble bursts, only a truly functional humanoid robot will remain," he said.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7544209892476584463/

Statement: The article represents the views of the author. Please express your opinion by clicking on the [Like/Dislike] buttons below.