Humanoid robots at center of U.S.-China competition

[0:00] After dominating the electric vehicle market, China's supply chains have now turned their [0:04] attention to something new, the humanoid robot. Now, while these robots are still partially [0:10] controlled by humans, the hope is that they'll soon be completely autonomous and do the jobs [0:15] we don't want to do. A sprint towards humanoid workers is shaping up to be the latest competition [0:20] between the U.S. and China, and the Chinese market is advancing at a rapid pace. A few weeks ago, [0:26] a humanoid won the Beijing half-marathon in a staggering 50 minutes and 26 seconds. The [0:31] fastest human was more than 10 minutes behind. So is China winning the race? Well, our Brit [0:37] clinic went behind the scenes at the world's largest humanoid maker, Unitree, in Hangzhou, [0:42] China, to find out. In the future, walking your dog might look like this. It's just me and my mate, [0:52] my robot mate and my robot dog walking along the river in Hangzhou. But actually, the age of the [0:59] robots may already be upon us. Ah, poor. And he doesn't even need a reward. [1:06] And it's my buddy here that's now at the centre of a U.S.-China competition. This is a humanoid [1:12] robot, still partially controlled by a human, but the aim is for this robot to be autonomous [1:18] and do the jobs we humans don't want to. The race is on now for who gets there first. [1:24] On the home front, Boston Dynamics made a splash at CES earlier this year, unveiling its latest Atlas [1:33] robot for industrial manufacturing. Its walk is pretty natural and pretty smooth. [1:39] Elon Musk and Tesla's long-delayed Optimus model hope to show a gentler, domesticated robot. In China, [1:47] the humanoid robots are a bit feistier. Having dominated the electric vehicle and consumer drone [2:00] markets, China's supply chains and manufacturing ecosystems are now steering towards mass-producing [2:05] humanoids. The Chinese government has designated humanoids as an industry of the future and crucial [2:14] pillar in the country's current five-year economic plan. Last summer, they held the first international [2:20] humanoid robot games in Beijing, where the Chinese robot startups swept the events, including industry [2:26] leader Unitree, whose models won four golds in events like the four-by-100-meter relay and the [2:32] 100-meter race. Unitree is trying to make their humanoids affordable for all and ubiquitous. Standing [2:41] four-foot-four, Unitree's G1 model is the first humanoid model to cost under $14,000. You may have seen [2:49] them fighting, like here, for UFC CEO Dana White on his recent trip to China. But regular people are buying them, too. [2:58] In Hangzhou, China's humanoid valley, we meet our first humanoid in the wild. Something of a local [3:05] celebrity. Meet Benny, a dripped-out robot influencer and his human live-streaming partner, Number One [3:12] Sister. He's an internet star, she's saying. He's very famous here in Hangzhou. Benny spreads happiness, [3:19] she says. It shows. Benny has nearly 150,000 followers. And he turns out to be a bit of a flirt. [3:27] I have seen it all now. A humanoid robot acting like an unruly teenager or child running away, [3:36] running after girls down the street. Under all that, Benny is also a Unitree G1. [3:41] Hello, NBC News. Benny here. Stay fabulous. [3:46] Enhanced with an AI created by his owner, he speaks with me in English. [3:50] Every chap with you makes my circuits spin. Well, that's very sweet. At Unitree's headquarters, [3:59] they show us their G1s going head-to-head. And I couldn't resist jumping in. Do you reckon [4:05] you could take me on? Let's give it a go. With humanity's future on the line. It's actually [4:12] quite fun. And quite a workout. It's hard not to take it a bit too seriously. In your face. [4:20] The majority of Unitree's customers are university researchers, pushing the robot's abilities, [4:29] teaching G1s how to backflip and recover from even more abuse than Nike Philly was able to deliver. [4:35] And it's working. Within a span of a year, their robots went from dancing like this at last year's [4:42] Lunar New Year's celebrations to this at this year's. They dance, they box, kung fu. Many people will ask, [4:52] how are they actually useful? When you see our robot do the kung fu dancing, [4:56] we want to showcase our high performance in the motion control. So movement is the fundamental. [5:04] Once the robot can keep the balance under the very extreme circumstance, then the next step is [5:10] getting to our daily life to assist the human. So is the idea to have one of these or one of those [5:16] in everyone's household that it's going to be like having a smartphone or having a drone? [5:21] We assume in the future, the robot could get into our daily life, [5:25] but maybe we assume five to ten years, not currently. [5:30] The humanoids industry is still nascent, but Morgan Stanley expects it to hit $5 trillion by 2050, [5:37] with nearly a billion of these robots working around the world. [5:41] Basically, the robots can, on one hand, fill in or replace the low-end manufacturing jobs, [5:48] and then on the other hand, also taking care of the elderly. [5:54] But China does have an advantage. [5:57] In China, what we've seen is that these kind of projects are happening at a much bigger and [6:03] faster scale than in the US. Because the simple reality is that I think, with the exception of Tesla, [6:10] there's just not that many advanced manufacturing that is still left in the US for this kind of experiments. [6:19] Does that mean that the US cannot win this humanoid robot race? [6:24] The US still commands the lead when it comes to really cutting-edge research. [6:29] What the US does not have at the moment, and for several years to come at least, [6:36] is the places to apply that research. [6:45] And the industry is developing at a dizzying speed, which leads to the question, [6:49] when this is all combined with AI, should we be worried? [6:54] Is there a risk that they're going to take over and develop minds of their own? [6:58] And whenever actually we manage to develop AI models that are sentient, [7:03] then yes, that's when I will probably get worried that the robots are going to take over. [7:08] We're going to see robot armies, you know, taking over the world or whatever. [7:12] The most we're concerned about is not the robot will hurt humans. [7:17] We're most concerned about is the bad guys, is taking advantage of the robot. [7:21] So we need to build up the regulation. [7:24] Back in Hangzhou, number one sister tells me she bought Benny a month before we met. [7:32] She says humanoid robot interaction is the trend of the future, [7:36] and they want to show the audience what that future might look like. [7:39] And at least for now, we can only hope the future is less Terminator and a little more Benny, [7:45] just a playful robot in search of hugs and likes. [7:48] Bye. Be nice. See you next time.