While Chinese companies last week showed off humanlike robots playing the zither or grabbing sodas, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) displayed its Optimus humanoid inside a clear box, motionless next to its cars.
Elon Musk has claimed Optimus can fold laundry, and one day cook, clean or teach children — tech he touts can give Tesla a value of $25 trillion. Musk says Tesla plans to test out the humanoids in its factories next year. It’s unclear how well they can perform right now.
Meanwhile, the World Robot Conference that began Wednesday in Beijing claimed 27 humanoids debuted at the event, a record. Similar to the country’s rush into electric cars a few years ago, money and resources are now flowing into the development of humanlike robots.
Total investment into China’s robotics industry in the last decade has exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14.01 billion U.S.), said Wei Cao, partner at Lanchi Ventures. He said the firm has around 15 billion to 20 billion yuan in assets under management.
Cao told reporters he expects the next milestone for humanoid development will occur in the next year or two: a commercially viable use case in manufacturing in which the robots can move around and know how to prioritize a series of tasks.
TSLA shares fell $3.56, or 1.6%, first thing Monday to $216.76.
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