Chinese Agibot launched mass production of humanoid robots before Tesla

Launched in February 2023, Agibot, a Chinese robotics startup, has created quite a stir in the industry by announcing the start of mass production of general-purpose humanoid robots. According to Chinese media, the company will deliver about 1,000 robots by the end of the year.

Image source: Agibot

The startup Agibot, known locally as Zhiyuan Robotics, posted on its official website some footage of its manufacturing facility, which has reportedly produced 962 humanoid robots to date. Along with this, Agibot published a short video showing the different stages of robot production at the Lingang Fengxian plant in Shanghai.

The company’s production line, among other things, employs its own humanoid robots to help people perform tasks such as arranging tools on shelves and testing components. The startup also set up a so-called “data factory” to train robots to perform various tasks, such as folding clothes, cleaning and washing clothes.

Various companies around the world are developing humanoid robots. These include Tesla, owned by Elon Musk, whose main business is the production of electric vehicles. In July, the billionaire said that truly useful humanoid robots would begin to be used internally by Tesla next year, with mass production slated for 2026.

The start of mass production of Agibot robots indicates that the Chinese company is ahead of Tesla, but the gap is unlikely to be significant. According to analysts, this also indicates the impressive pace of development of the robotics market, due to which humanoid robots have actually turned from laboratory prototypes into tangible products.

The report says that robot hardware has reached a noticeable level of standardization, so humanoid robots from different companies are not much different from each other in this regard. However, American companies such as Tesla and Nvidia have certain advantages in areas such as precision upper limb manipulation and operational capabilities, as well as in high-performance chip production and cloud computing resources. At the same time, Chinese companies have become more successful in motion control and creating advanced AI models, as well as developing different scenarios for using robots.