Humanoid robots bring artificial intelligence to services

A painting robot is pictured at the World Robot Conference 2023 in Beijing, capital of China, Aug. 17, 2023. The World Robot Conference 2023 is held from Aug. 16 to 22 in Beijing. (Xinhua/Ren Chao)

BEIJING, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Holding, tilting and twisting a jug of milk to make latte art is no longer the unique skill of a barista -- a humanoid robot could recently be seen swirling hearts into cups of coffee in Beijing.

At the 2023 World Robot Conference (WRC) kicked off last week in Beijing, various humanoid robots dazzled visitors with their proficiency in dance, basketball, coffee-making and other abilities, heralding a near future with increased numbers of intelligent robots working among people.

Since the beginning of the year, the development of AI foundation models has provided technical support for the industrial application of humanoid robots. More and more robot developers are using AI foundation models for the intelligent control of robots.

"With the AI foundation models, humanoid robots have had their autonomic decision-making abilities enhanced in real application scenarios," said Wen Huanyu, an algorithm engineer at UBTECH Robotics Corp Ltd.

Unlike robots that receive simple instructions from people, humanoid robots to some degree already possess a semantic understanding ability, Wen said.

After hearing the voice command "I'm thirsty," Youyou, a panda-like robot from UBTECH shown at the WRC, responded after just a few seconds. It walked toward the refrigerator, opened it, reached in to take out a drink, and then closed the door using its other hand, just as a human would.

A humanoid service robot called Cloud Ginger, which has more than 30 intelligent flexible joints, attracted much attention at a booth operated by Dataa Robotics. Cloud Ginger is connected to a cloud platform and RobotGPT, and it has communication and multi-modal interaction abilities. It can take on a variety of roles, including the role of a dancer, performing the complex Chinese choreography 'Thousand-Hand Bodhisattva.'

These humanoid robots are not only showcasing their abilities at exhibitions -- They have also been put into practical use in schools, service halls and other locations. Many humanoid robots from EX Robots, for example, have undertaken manual work at conferences and exhibitions, in hotel services, and in education and elderly care.

With the continuous expansion of application scenarios and the scope of application, they will also enter factories, farms and even every household in the future.

Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology Xu Xiaolan said that the strong development momentum of China's robot industry and the continuous breakthroughs in basic core technologies have laid a solid foundation for the industrial development of humanoid robots.

According to industry estimates, the scale of the global humanoid robot market will reach 1.9 trillion yuan (about 263.9 billion U.S. dollars) by 2030, with China's market scale accounting for 376.2 billion yuan of that figure.

Though many humanoid robots released at the exhibition are still in their prototype stages, Vice President of Dataa Robotics Chen Yuan believes that humanoid robots can make better use of human tools and provide more intelligent services.

"As relevant enterprises continue to make great efforts to optimize the structural design of core robot components and reduce robot energy consumption, robots will have infinite potential to act like human beings in the future," Chen said.