Gasgoo Munich- At Gasgoo's innovation seminar on embodied perception fusion and multimodal large models, Wang Xianbin—Gasgoo partner and vice president at the Gasgoo Research Institute—pointed out that while the buzz around embodied intelligence and humanoid robots is intense, commercialization remains in its infancy. Small-scale pilots aren't expected until next year. The true drivers of industry progress will be cost reduction, closed-loop data systems, and supply chain collaboration, with the migration of the automotive supply chain serving as a key catalyst.Image Source: GasgooWang began by assessing the current landscape. This year, the World Intelligence Conference (WIC) spanned roughly 100,000 square meters, while the World Robot Conference (WRC) covered about 60,000. The events featured over 3,000 products and drew hundreds of companies. Global robot volume is projected to reach around 60,000 units this year, with China accounting for approximately 50,000.In terms of application scenarios, entertainment and research still dominate, though sectors like consumer electronics, automotive, and logistics have made notable progress, claiming roughly 15% to 20% of the share. All scenarios demand safety, reliability, and the ability to perform repetitive tasks over long periods with precision and generalization. Home environments, with their diverse personnel and objects, place higher demands on vision, force sensing, and large models. Specialized scenarios, meanwhile, face reliability challenges in dark or complex geographical environments.Regarding costs and the supply chain, Wang noted that actuation systems account for nearly half of the bill of materials. Perception components—including six-axis force sensors, IMUs, and 3D vision—mostly rely on mainstream solutions that reuse NVIDIA Orin chips. As production scales, there is room for cost reductions of 40% to 70% in both low-end and high-end products.Wang stated that the overlap between automotive and robotics supply chains reaches 60% to 70%, making the migration of automakers' cost-cutting measures and technology pilots to robotics a viable path.On technological variables, Wang believes the rapid evolution of general large models will pressure companies focused on the "brain" of embodied intelligence, while benefiting those working on the "cerebellum," hardware bodies, and visual-tactile perception algorithms.Domestic general models are beginning to see vertical deployment. In the future, only top-tier tech companies, select automakers, and hardware manufacturers with sufficient resources and talent will succeed. However, enterprises deeply entrenched in vertical sectors still have opportunities.Wang concluded that humanoid robots remain in the small-scale pilot phase. The industry is expected to expand gradually from relatively structured business-to-business industrial scenarios to unstructured ones. Hardware precision, cost reduction, and integration with large models remain the primary focus.
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