At a time when science and technology are developing rapidly, the robotics industry is undergoing profound changes, especially the field of humanoid robots, which has become the focus of global technological innovation. Humanoid robots, as the crystallization of the deep integration of artificial intelligence and robotics technology, are gradually moving from science fiction to real life with their characteristics of simulating human appearance, posture and movements.
Humanoid robots "break the circle": opportunities and challenges coexist
The broad commercial application prospects of humanoid robots are gradually turning from dreams into reality. Goldman Sachs, a well-known financial institution in the United States, predicted in a report that humanoid robots can be used in factories as early as 2024-2027 and enter the consumer market from 2028 to 2031. It is estimated that by 2035, the global shipment of humanoid robots will reach 1.4 million units, with a market size of approximately US$38 billion. The report believes that humanoid robots are particularly suitable for "dangerous, dirty and boring" jobs, and the demand for humanoid robots will be extremely strong in mining, disaster relief, nuclear reactor maintenance and chemical manufacturing. In the future, 10% - 15% of hazardous and harmful jobs and jobs in the automotive manufacturing industry will be replaced by robots.
At the current stage, the key hardware components of humanoid robots are moving towards higher maturity and reliability, and the overall manufacturing cost is also declining rapidly, which lays the foundation for large-scale applications. Its commercialization process will follow the path of gradually expanding from To B segmented scenarios to To C markets. At this stage, humanoid robots will take the lead in implementing To B segmented scenarios such as factory production, security inspection, logistics distribution, and service guidance, accumulating practical experience and optimizing product performance in a relatively single-function and clear-task form. With the continuous improvement of technical capabilities, humanoid robots will gradually evolve from special-purpose to general-purpose, and then expand to To C markets such as home care, personal assistants, and educational service assistants, and gradually become "everyone can have" intelligent service terminals. From a longer-term perspective, humanoid robots will also replace humans in extreme environments such as aerospace and deep-sea polar regions, and become an important auxiliary tool for humans to explore the universe and the unknown world.
However, the humanoid robot industry also faces many challenges in its development. At the technical level, although some progress has been made, continuous breakthroughs are still needed in core technologies such as intelligent perception and drive control to improve the intelligence level and operation accuracy of robots. In terms of cost, although the overall manufacturing cost is on a downward trend, it is still necessary to further reduce costs and improve product cost performance to achieve large-scale popularization. At the market level, consumers' cognition and acceptance of humanoid robots need to be improved, and market cultivation still requires a lot of effort. In addition, the widespread application of humanoid robots may also cause a series of social problems, such as employment structure adjustment and ethical and moral disputes, and response plans need to be made in advance.
In summary, the global robotics industry, especially the field of humanoid robots, is in a critical period of rapid development and change. Countries are competing fiercely in technology research and development, industrial layout and market expansion. With the continuous advancement of technology and the "breaking the circle" application of humanoid robots, there will be broad development opportunities in the future, but at the same time, many challenges need to be faced and overcome to achieve sustainable development of the industry.
