Alibaba Group Holding Ltd plans to soon unveil its first robot, a four-legged device that will mark its entry into an increasingly crowded but popular arena.
The Chinese company’s Amap unit is preparing to introduce a quadruped robot to the market that will compete with the likes of Unitree’s Go series, a company spokesperson said. Amap’s embodied intelligence research division is also exploring the feasibility of humanoid robots, a segment that’s captured Chinese consumer imagination, according to the spokesperson.
Alibaba joins industry leaders Unitree and Agibot as well as close affiliate Ant Group Co in exploring a rapidly expanding realm with as yet unproven long-term market potential. Those Chinese firms are among the highest-profile of scores of players aiming to outdo Tesla Inc and other rivals in the US. It’s unclear when Alibaba intends to begin selling its four-legged product. Such robots have to date proven popular with a certain class of consumer seeking an early adopter’s cachet. Unitree’s Go2 goes for US$1,600 (RM6,321.60).
"We have already made in-depth investments in the field of embodied intelligence, continuously releasing multiple embodied models, and actively exploring hardware product forms such as quadruped robots and humanoid robots,” the spokesperson for Amap, the online map and local services unit, said in a statement. "We expect to release our first quadruped robot soon.”
Humanoids in particular have fired up Chinese consumers’ interest, even as various companies explore ways to put them to work in factories or the home. Machines made by Unitree and its peers again wowed audiences at this year’s Spring Festival gala. Robots starred in comedy skits, danced to Mandarin pop and bounced off walls like kung fu masters.
Capital is flowing into robot makers, propping up stocks in companies like UBTech Robotics Corp. That company is now offering as much as 124 million yuan (US$18mil/RM71mil) for a chief scientist, underscoring the heated competition underway for talent to advance the technology. – Bloomberg
