SunTzu Recruit has obtained the latest information indicating that the autonomous driving computing solutions company Horizon has established a research lab for embodied intelligence with about 50 people. The main leader of this team is Su Zhizhong, the former head of Horizon’s intelligent driving perception R&D department, who joined Horizon in 2017 and was one of the initial members of Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning (IDL). In early 2024, Horizon established a wholly-owned subsidiary called “Sweet Potato Robot,” primarily focused on developing the underlying computing platform for consumer-grade robots. The new embodied intelligence team within Horizon is mainly engaged in the research and development of embodied intelligence hardware and software, aimed at a more distant future.
Yu Kai’s starting point for entrepreneurship was robotics. When he founded Horizon Robotics in 2015, he told investors, “The future of the world is all about robots,” which contains enormous opportunities that come once in a decade or two. The initial registered name of Horizon was also “Horizon Robotics.” The main team leader is Su Zhizhong, the former head of the intelligent driving perception R&D department at Horizon, who joined in 2017 and was one of the initial members of Baidu’s Institute of Deep Learning (IDL). Yu Yinan and Su Zhizhong are peers and report to Yu Kai.
In early 2024, Horizon established a wholly-owned subsidiary called “Sweet Potato Robotics,” primarily focused on developing the underlying computing platform for consumer-grade robots. The new embodied intelligence team within Horizon is mainly working on embodied intelligence hardware and software, aimed at a more distant future. Yu Kai’s entrepreneurial starting point was robotics; when he founded Horizon in 2015, he told investors, “The future of the world is all about robots,” which contains enormous opportunities that come once in a decade or two. Horizon’s initial registered name was also “Horizon Robotics.”
Since 2019, Horizon has focused its business on autonomous driving computing platforms and has quickly grown into a leading company in the industry. However, in Yu Kai’s view, the further future of Horizon is still “robots.” In an interview with us this year, he stated, “Horizon, as a group, has a long-term mission of robots.” Yu Kai believes that smart cars are a vertical of robotics. Just as the rise of smartphones spurred the development of various devices like smart tablets and TVs, the path from smart cars to robots may be similar: first, using the massive hardware form of cars to “break through” the related software and hardware technologies of robotics. For example, driven by smart cars, the price of lidar has dropped from 700,000 RMB ten years ago to 2,000-3,000 RMB, which is also a sensor needed for robots. The existing large automotive industry can attract more funding, talent, and industry players to participate, reserving supply chains and strong leading companies for the future development of robots. Embodied intelligence and humanoid robots are another hot direction for large models after personal assistants.
From cleaning robots to robotic arms on production lines, and then to wheeled robots that can transport goods in factories, the field has been iterating. In recent years, the application of end-to-end and large model technologies in autonomous driving, along with advancements in key hardware technologies like joints, has given robotics practitioners a glimpse of the opportunity for “general-purpose humanoid robots.” Several automotive and intelligent driving companies are making relevant arrangements. Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robot is a pioneer in the industry. Earlier this year, Musk stated that the robot would be produced in limited quantities next year for use on Tesla’s production lines, and he believes the market size for Optimus will reach $25 trillion, several times that of the electric vehicle market.
NVIDIA established the Embodied Intelligence Lab (GEAR) in the first quarter of this year, led by senior research scientists Jim Fan and Zhu Yuke. At the GTC in March, NVIDIA released the humanoid robot single-board computer Jetson Thor, along with a series of supporting models and software. The term “Embodied AI” has also been popularized by Jensen Huang himself in various speeches. Xiaopeng also launched a humanoid robot platform at the end of 2023, and He Xiaopeng recently demonstrated a scenario where a robotic hand placed an order to buy a car. Embodied intelligence is one of the few tech startup fields currently able to secure significant funding, and it is a future direction that leading tech companies are willing to invest in, although it is still some distance from large-scale implementation.
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