Credit: Ti Post

BEIJING, Aug 22 (TMTPost) —— TMTPost learned that , Shanghai Zhiyuan Xinchuang Technology Co., Ltd.  (Agibot), founded by Peng Zhihui, unveiled its latest first intelligent humanoid robot, Expedition A1, last Friday.

This product combines artificial intelligence technology with humanoid robots. It is 175cm tall, weighs 53kg, and has a maximum walking speed of 7km/h. With 49 degrees of freedom, the robot can bear a weight of 80kg, and the maximum load of a single arm is 5kg. It not only has a human-like appearance, but also demonstrates certain technical capabilities in bipedal walking, intelligent tasks, and human-machine interaction. The company expects that Expedition A1 will quickly enter the commercialization stage next year.

Peng, the co-founder of Agibot, said that Expedition A1 is Agibot's first generation of the general-purpose intelligent humanoid robot. It is built based on the research and development of the founding team in the fields of robotics and AI industry for many years. The robot will eventually be able to autonomously complete movement and  tasks in various complex scenarios. “We are committed to closely integrating advanced robots and AI technology with human life and production manufacturing, and making robots become capable assistants for humans in the future,” said Peng.

"The release of Expedition A1 is just the starting point for Agibot's pursuit of excellence. This prototype marks an important step we have taken in the field of artificial intelligence + robotics," Peng said during the product launch.

During his work tenure at Huawei and OPPO, Peng became famous for posting many hardcore technology product videos on short video platform Bilibili, and also won the title of "Top 100 Uploaders of 2021" from Bilibili. In addition, tech giant Huawei’s founder Ren Zhengfei praised Peng in a speech in 2021, calling him the driving force behind Huawei's innovation. "For the 2012 Laboratory (Huawei's theoretical research laboratory), the company has never imposed too many constraints on you. For example, someone is researching automatic driving for bicycles, and the company has not constrained him. Do we need to produce bicycles? No. This is the 'scalpel' he wields, and perhaps in the future, it will have some great commercial value,” said Ren.

However, after more than two years of working at Huawei, Peng was reported to have left the company at the end of December 2022. He later confirmed on Weibo that he had left Huawei. "I will embark on a new career and do more challenging things, not because we are confident that we can do it well, but because it is my passion and dream," said Peng.

In February 2023, Peng co-founded Agibot, a company dedicated to the innovation of AI and robotics, aiming to create a world-leading innovative enterprise in the field of physical intelligent robots and application ecosystems, with the mission of "creating infinite productivity with intelligent machines." The company stated that the founding team includes Peng and several other industry veterans, with complementary backgrounds and profound core technology backgrounds, industrial management experience, and industry resources.

TMTPost learned that as of now, Agibot has more than 100 employees, with an average age of around 30.

This time, Agibot officially released its first humanoid robot, Expedition A1, which adopts a modular design for the upper and lower limbs, with a cost price of less than 200,000 yuan.

According to Tesla CEO Elon Musk's prediction, the market for humanoid robots in the future may even surpass that of electric cars, reaching a scale of 10 billion units. At that time, this trillion-dollar market will undoubtedly become the focus of competition among various technology companies.

"People are great because of dreams. One of my dreams is to make the intelligent robots shown only in science fiction movies. These robots are no longer simple mechanical devices, but intelligent partners with autonomous thinking, and learning abilities. They can perceive and understand our world and engage in deep communication and cooperation with us," said Peng. (This article was first published on the TMTPost App, author | Lin Zhijia)