Speaker 1: Welcome to the Sentient Code, where intelligence is engineered, autonomy
Speaker 1: is emerging, and a line between human and machine grows thinner.
Speaker 1: Each episode, we decode the algorithms, explore the robotics, and
Speaker 1: examine the ideas shaping the future of artificial minds.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's start with the date, just to kind
Speaker 2: of anchor ourselves in time.
Speaker 3: Good idea.
Speaker 2: It is Tuesday, February seventeenth, twenty twenty six. And you know,
Speaker 2: for a lot of people today is probably that slow
Speaker 2: day back at work.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, nursing the food coma from yesterday's.
Speaker 2: Celebrations exactly too many dumplings, too many New Year cakes.
Speaker 2: But the date that I think is really going to
Speaker 2: be circled in the history books of well of technology. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it isn't today, It was yesterday.
Speaker 3: It really really feels like the tectonic plates of the
Speaker 3: entire tech world shifted while we were all just, you know,
Speaker 3: sitting on the couch watching TV last night.
Speaker 2: Doesn't It absolutely does. We are, of course, talking about
Speaker 2: the day after the lunar New Year celebration. We are
Speaker 2: here to unpack the massive, the overwhelming, the just record
Speaker 2: breaking twenty twenty six CCTV Spring Festival Gala or tune.
Speaker 3: One, which, and we should probably explain this for anyone
Speaker 3: who isn't familiar, is the single most watched television event
Speaker 3: on the planet period.
Speaker 2: It is truly, truly mind boggling. I think for our listeners,
Speaker 2: especially maybe in North America or Europe, we always use
Speaker 2: the super Bowl as the benchmark for a big TV event.
Speaker 3: Sure, the halftime show, the commercials, it's a cultural touchstone,
Speaker 3: it is.
Speaker 2: But we have to completely recalibrate our scales here. We
Speaker 2: need a whole new frame of reference. Oh.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the super Bowl is huge, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 3: It's a massive cultural moment in the US. But the
Speaker 3: Spring Festival Gala, you are looking at an audience that
Speaker 3: regularly consistently hits between five hundred and seven hundred million
Speaker 3: live viewers.
Speaker 2: That number doesn't even sound real. Five hundred million.
Speaker 3: It's half a billion people minimum.
Speaker 2: Watching the same program at the exact same time. It's wild.
Speaker 3: It's a cultural monolith. It's the background noise of the
Speaker 3: new year for nearly what twenty percent of the human population.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Usually it's a mix of pop stars, maybe some comedy sketches.
Speaker 3: Traditional dancer is a bit of magic. But this year
Speaker 3: the theme wasn't just celebration. It felt like a vision statement.
Speaker 2: It was a reveal, a very loud, very very expensive reveal.
Speaker 2: Because normally you expect maybe a little cameo from a
Speaker 2: piece of tech, a drone swarm in the sky forming
Speaker 2: a dragon.
Speaker 3: Maybe we've seen that rite a bit of tech spectacle.
Speaker 2: But this year the stage was absolutely taken over by
Speaker 2: humanoid robots and not just you know, standing in the background.
Speaker 2: They were the main character.
Speaker 3: It was an unprecedented focus. We aren't talking about a
Speaker 3: cute little cameo where a robot waves at the camera
Speaker 3: and it never goes ah how neat. This was a
Speaker 3: humanoid robotics revolution, broadcast live to the entire world. It
Speaker 3: was a statement that the hardware has finally caught up
Speaker 3: to the hype.
Speaker 2: I mean, I watched it live and I'm still trying
Speaker 2: to process the sheer absurdity and the wonder of the visuals.
Speaker 2: We had robots performing kung fu, We had robots doing
Speaker 2: the drump and fists, which is insane, and we had
Speaker 2: them interacting with children on stage live. It was completely.
Speaker 3: Surreal and it wasn't chip surrealism either. This wasn't some
Speaker 3: creative director just having a wild idea and using like
Speaker 3: Cgi or bubbeteers. This was a strategic partnership, a very
Speaker 3: public one. It evolved four of the leading startups in
Speaker 3: the sector, Unitree, Magic Lab, Galbot and Noatics.
Speaker 2: And there was serious money involved here, right, This wasn't
Speaker 2: just for the exposure.
Speaker 3: Oh no. The reports suggest the partnership deals were worth
Speaker 3: around one hundred million YU on.
Speaker 2: Which is roughly what fourteen million US dollars About that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the value goes way way beyond the cash.
Speaker 3: This was a signal. It was a statement about embodied AI.
Speaker 2: Embodied AI, that's the phrase I keep hearing this morning.
Speaker 2: It sounds so sci fi, but I guess here we are.
Speaker 3: Well, it's the idea that artificial intelligence isn't just a
Speaker 3: chat bot in your browser anymore. But it's not just
Speaker 3: a large language model living in a server farm somewhere
Speaker 3: in the desert. It has a body. It has a
Speaker 3: body you can move, it can act, it can manipulate
Speaker 3: the physical world, and as we saw last night, it
Speaker 3: can perform martial arts with frankly terrifying precision.
Speaker 2: So the mission of our discussion today, I guess is
Speaker 2: to really get into that, to unpack how this single
Speaker 2: event managed to blend traditional Chinese culture with this incredibly
Speaker 2: cutting edge technology to signal loudly that technological self reliance
Speaker 2: isn't a future goal. It's here.
Speaker 3: It's happening right now on the world's biggest stage.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's get into the weeds. Let's do a
Speaker 2: proper analysis of this, because the star of the show,
Speaker 2: the moment that I think just absolutely broke the internet,
Speaker 2: was the segment they called Wuviot.
Speaker 3: It's a clever name, Wou from Wu Shu or martial
Speaker 3: arts and bought.
Speaker 2: Simple, simple, effective, but the execution was anything but simple.
Speaker 2: This was the flagship segment, and it featured Unitary robotics.
Speaker 3: Specifically, they're G one humanoid robots. I mean, they had
Speaker 3: a few of the larger H one and H two
Speaker 3: variants sprinkled in there for some of the heavy lifting moments,
Speaker 3: but the g Ones were the main m the main
Speaker 3: chorus line, so to speak.
Speaker 2: And the G one is their mass production model, right
Speaker 2: the one they're trying to really scale up.
Speaker 3: That's the one. This was a showcase for the robot
Speaker 3: they intend to sell.
Speaker 2: By the thousands, and they weren't alone on stage. This
Speaker 2: is the part that gave me anxiety just watching it.
Speaker 2: They were performing alongside these incredibly talented kids from the
Speaker 2: Hennen Tago Martial Arts School, which.
Speaker 3: Just adds layer of complexity that makes me sweat just
Speaker 3: thinking about it. From an engineering and a safety perspective,
Speaker 3: you have high energy human performers children moving frankly, unpredictably
Speaker 3: right next to autonomous machines that are swinging weapons around.
Speaker 3: That is, that is a recipe for disaster if your
Speaker 3: code isn't absolutely perfect.
Speaker 2: And the energy I mean. The official description called it
Speaker 2: a fully autonomous humanoid robot cluster Kung Fu performance. Mmm.
Speaker 2: Just saying that sentence out loud feels like a mouthful
Speaker 2: from a science ficion novel.
Speaker 3: It is, but every single word in that sentence matters.
Speaker 3: Fully autonomous means no one was driving them with a joystick.
Speaker 3: There wasn't a team of people backstage with controllers for
Speaker 3: each robot.
Speaker 2: They were thinking for themselves in a way.
Speaker 3: Yes, they were executing their programming based on real time
Speaker 3: sensory input. Cluster means they were communicating with each other.
Speaker 3: They were aware of their group positioning, maintaining formation like a.
Speaker 2: Flock of birds, but with more spinning kicks exactly.
Speaker 3: And kung fu. Oh well, that's the incredible physical challenge
Speaker 3: that they set for themselves.
Speaker 2: Let's really dig into that physical challenge, because the one
Speaker 2: thing that made my jaw hit the floor was the
Speaker 2: drinke and fist zuquon.
Speaker 3: It is, I would argue, one of the most difficult
Speaker 3: martial arts styles for a human to master, let alone
Speaker 3: a robot, right.
Speaker 2: Because the entire point of drunken fists is that you
Speaker 2: look like you're about to fall over. You're stumbling, your
Speaker 2: off balance, lurching. It's all about deception.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and for a robot, balance is usually the number
Speaker 3: one goal. It's the prime directive. You want the center
Speaker 3: of gravity to be stable, you want predictable footing, you
Speaker 3: want your zero moment point, the point where all forces
Speaker 3: are balanced, to be right between your feet. Zuok one
Speaker 3: throws all of that out the window.
Speaker 2: So how do they even program that? Are they just
Speaker 2: telling it to almost fall?
Speaker 3: It's more complex than that. It requires programming these incredibly
Speaker 3: wobbly off balanced stances. It demands exaggerated swaying. It's like
Speaker 3: they have to constantly ride the very edge of their
Speaker 3: stability envelope without ever actually losing control. It's a continuous
Speaker 3: dynamic balancing act.
Speaker 2: And they were doing these sudden drops. I saw robots
Speaker 2: just hit the deck and then bounce right back up.
Speaker 3: That is the technical marvel right there. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 3: just the falling. Anyone can push a robot over. I
Speaker 3: could do that, right, It's the recovery. In robotics, we
Speaker 3: call this fault recovery algorithms. Usually, if a bipedal robot
Speaker 3: falls over, the show is over. It's a fail state.
Speaker 3: It needs a crane or a team of engineers in
Speaker 3: white coats to come out and reset it. It's embarrassing.
Speaker 2: But these things were popping back up like Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 2: in a Terminator.
Speaker 3: Movie without any help. That is the key. They had
Speaker 3: to maintain this real time balance control in chaotic conditions,
Speaker 3: fall intentionally as part of the choreography, and then execute
Speaker 3: an explosive, powerful recovery to get back on their feet.
Speaker 2: So what does that show us technically what's going on
Speaker 2: under the hood there.
Speaker 3: It demonstrates a level of dynamic stability and proprioception that
Speaker 3: is honestly shocking. Proprioception is your body's awareness of itself
Speaker 3: in space. It implies the robot has an internal model
Speaker 3: of its own body that is incredibly advanced and that
Speaker 3: it can use to plan these complex, multi stage movements
Speaker 3: in milliseconds.
Speaker 2: It's almost like they have an inner ear like humans
Speaker 2: do for balance.
Speaker 3: In a way they do their imus. Their inertial measurement
Speaker 3: units are working overtime. These are the sensors, the gyroscopes
Speaker 3: and excelrometers that are processing thousands of data points every second.
Speaker 3: To say, okay, my torso is tilting backer at thirty
Speaker 3: degrees per second, I'm falling, So engage the knee actuators
Speaker 3: at x torque, swinging the left arm forward for a momentum,
Speaker 3: and push off the right heel to get back up.
Speaker 3: It's a symphony of calculations.
Speaker 2: And they weren't just dancing empty handed. They had weapons. This
Speaker 2: is another level.
Speaker 3: Of crazy broadswords. Yeah, the dies staffs, the gun and nunchucks.
Speaker 2: Nunchucks. I can barely use nunchucks without hitting myself on
Speaker 2: the face. Seeing robots spin them around with the kids
Speaker 2: standing three feet away.
Speaker 3: It adds this whole variable of inertia and momentum that
Speaker 3: the robot has to calculate in real time. It's not
Speaker 3: just its own body anymore. If you swing a heavy staff,
Speaker 3: it pulls your body forward. Centrifugal force is.
Speaker 2: Very real, so the robot has to actively fight that
Speaker 2: force instantly.
Speaker 3: It has to compensate for that pull in the exact
Speaker 3: opposite direction, or just falls over. It's a constant feedback loop, swinging,
Speaker 3: feel the pole, adjust stance, compensate, all while stay in
Speaker 3: sync with the music and dozens of other performers.
Speaker 2: It really highlights the relevance of this whole segment. Then
Speaker 2: it's not just look a robot can dance. It's look
Speaker 2: a robot that can handle chaotic, unpredictable physical forces.
Speaker 3: Precisely, it's a demonstration of robustness because if it can
Speaker 3: handle a nunchuck swing while standing on one leg on
Speaker 3: a slippery stage, it can probably handle carrying a heavy
Speaker 3: box of groceries over an icy driveway. That's the translation
Speaker 3: to the real world.
Speaker 2: That makes sense. But then we have to talk about
Speaker 2: the acrobatics because they didn't just stand the ground.
Speaker 3: No, No, they were airborne.
Speaker 2: I saw freestyle table vaulting parkour. A robot just running
Speaker 2: at a table, planting its hands and vaulting over it.
Speaker 3: And the aerial flips they looked well, they looked impossible
Speaker 3: for a machine made of metal, plastic and wires.
Speaker 2: How hygrid they getting.
Speaker 3: Some of them are doing three meter high aerial flips. Now,
Speaker 3: just stop and think about the structural stress on a
Speaker 3: machine when it lands from three meters in the air.
Speaker 3: That's almost ten feet.
Speaker 2: That has to exceed standard structural limits, doesn't it. I
Speaker 2: mean my phone screen cracks if I drop at three
Speaker 2: feet Usually.
Speaker 3: Yes, for most robots, a fall from that height you
Speaker 3: would risk snapping the joints, shattering the optical sensors, or
Speaker 3: stripping the gears and the harmonic drives that control the limbs.
Speaker 3: But these units, they took the impact, they absorbed the shock,
Speaker 3: and they kept moving.
Speaker 2: I saw continuous single legg flips and two step wall assisted.
Speaker 3: Backflips, the kind of stuff you see in an action movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the speed they weren't moving in that slow,
Speaker 2: deliberate I'm thinking about my next step motion like those
Speaker 2: old robot videos we used to laugh at.
Speaker 3: No, this was fluid and fast. They were clocking running
Speaker 3: speeds up to four meters per second, which is about
Speaker 3: about fourteen kilometers per hour or around nine miles per hour.
Speaker 3: That is a respectable human sprint.
Speaker 2: And then there was that break dancing move, the airflare.
Speaker 3: Was it the seven point five rotation airflare Grand skin.
Speaker 2: I don't even know what that means technically, but visually
Speaker 2: it was just a blur of a robot spinning on
Speaker 2: its hands.
Speaker 3: It's an incredibly difficult power move and break dancing. The
Speaker 3: body spins horizontally, almost parallel to the floor while you
Speaker 3: balance on your hands, switching from one hand to the
Speaker 3: other rapidly teeth the momentum.
Speaker 2: So to do seven and a half rotations continuously.
Speaker 3: It requires a battery output and a joint torque density
Speaker 3: that is absolutely cutting edge. It's a massive stress test
Speaker 3: for the battery management system and the cooling systems as
Speaker 3: much as it is for the motors. That move has
Speaker 3: never been achieved live by a humanoid cluster before ever.
Speaker 2: And cluster is the word that brings us to the
Speaker 2: next big point here. It wasn't just one super robot
Speaker 2: showing off in the spotlight. It was dozens of them.
Speaker 3: This is where we get into the realm of swarm intelligence.
Speaker 3: And this to me is almost more impressive than a
Speaker 3: single robot's acrobatics.
Speaker 2: Right, Because if you have one robot doing a backflip,
Speaker 2: that's incredible engineering. But if you have twenty robots doing
Speaker 2: backflips next to each other without crashing into each other,
Speaker 2: that's a whole different problem.
Speaker 3: It's a logistics and a communication problem. They were moving
Speaker 3: in these perfectly synchronized formations, and we have to remit umber.
Speaker 3: They aren't on rails, they aren't following magnets in the floor.
Speaker 2: They're using closed loop AI perception. What does that mean?
Speaker 3: In simple terms, it means they are constantly seeing the
Speaker 3: world around them and reacting to it. The loop is
Speaker 3: see think, act, repeat over and over hundreds of times.
Speaker 2: A second, so they are literally seeing each other.
Speaker 3: Yes, they're equipped with a sensor suite, primarily using triangular
Speaker 3: light ar and vision systems cameras to map the stage,
Speaker 3: to map the position of their neighbors, and most importantly,
Speaker 3: to map the human performers in real time.
Speaker 2: Which brings me back to the safety question, because again,
Speaker 2: we have robots swinging sticks and nunchucks and they are
Speaker 2: at times inches away from children.
Speaker 3: It's a terrifying prospect for a safety officer. But it's
Speaker 3: a massive flex for the engineers who program them. They
Speaker 3: use a technique called reinforcement learning to achieve over ninety
Speaker 3: percent motion accuracy.
Speaker 2: Reinforcement learning. We hear that term a lot with AI,
Speaker 2: like chat rept but how does it apply to physical
Speaker 2: legs and arms.
Speaker 3: Well, think of it like training a dog, but digitally
Speaker 3: and millions of times faster. You give the AI a
Speaker 3: goal in a computer simulation. Do this kung fu move,
Speaker 3: but don't let the end of your staff get within
Speaker 3: twelve inches of this moving child shaped object, and you
Speaker 3: reward it when it gets it right and penalize it
Speaker 3: when it fails.
Speaker 2: So it practice is in a video game, essentially a very.
Speaker 3: Very realistic video game. They ran these simulations millions, maybe
Speaker 3: billions of times. We call this process sim too real
Speaker 3: simulation to reality. They let the AI figure out the
Speaker 3: optimal movements on its own through trial and error, so.
Speaker 2: By the time they got to the Gallas stage, the
Speaker 2: robots had effectively practiced this routine more times than any
Speaker 2: human being ever could.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and the system is dynamic. It allows for real
Speaker 3: time spacing adjustments. If a human performer is a few
Speaker 3: inches off their mark, which they will be because they're human.
Speaker 3: Of course, the robust perception system detects it and instantly
Speaker 3: adjusts its swing or its step to avoid a collision.
Speaker 3: Its dynamic safety, pre program safety. It's adapting on the fly.
Speaker 2: That is just incredible. And they even had sparring sequences, right,
Speaker 2: It wasn't just dancing side by side. They were actually fighting.
Speaker 3: They called it the Louis Fists sequences. Yes, robots dueling
Speaker 3: with the young performers. It was choreygraphed, of course, but
Speaker 3: it required that same real time perception to work.
Speaker 2: It was a showcase of harmony, I guess, between man
Speaker 2: and machine in a very confined, very active space.
Speaker 3: That's the thematic takeaway they were going for. It sends
Speaker 3: a pretty strong message. We are safe, we are precise,
Speaker 3: we can work with you, not against you.
Speaker 2: It's an attempt to erase that classic sci fi fear
Speaker 2: that robots are dangerous, clumsy machines that are going to
Speaker 2: trip and crush you.
Speaker 3: Exactly. It's a very powerful image. But speaking of powerful images,
Speaker 3: we absolutely have to talk about the Monkey King.
Speaker 2: Oh man, the monkey King.
Speaker 3: This is where the cultural fusion peaked. It was just
Speaker 3: a masterstroke of stagecraft and symbolism.
Speaker 2: For those who might not know, the Monkey King's Sun
Speaker 2: Wukong is like the ultimate superhero of Chinese mythology from
Speaker 2: the classic novel Journey to the West.
Speaker 3: He represents agility, cleverness, rebellion, and incredible power, and typically
Speaker 3: in the year of the Horse. You might not expect
Speaker 3: the Monkey King to take center stage, but he is
Speaker 3: such an icon of movement and transformation.
Speaker 2: And they dressed up a Unitree H two model. This
Speaker 2: is the big one, the one point eight meter tall,
Speaker 2: heavily armored looking robot in full Monkey King armor.
Speaker 3: It was visually so striking, the ornate armor, the powerful stance.
Speaker 3: But the genius part, the part that made everyone gassed,
Speaker 3: was the cloud.
Speaker 2: The Somersault cloud. In the myths, the Monkey King can
Speaker 2: fly by riding on a magical cloud. So how did
Speaker 2: they pull that off with a robot.
Speaker 3: They used unit Trees B to W quadruped robot dogs,
Speaker 3: the four legged.
Speaker 2: Ones the robot dogs. Of course, Boston Dynamics made them famous,
Speaker 2: but Unitrey makes them.
Speaker 3: Too, and they are very very good at it. They
Speaker 3: basically covered a small pack of these B to W
Speaker 3: dogs in cloud like props and the humanoid Monkey King
Speaker 3: robot stood on top of them as they trotted around
Speaker 3: the stage. It was a robot writing other robots.
Speaker 2: Delivering New Year blessings from the sky.
Speaker 3: It was incredible and it appeared at both the main
Speaker 3: Beijing venue and the u Wu venue. It frames the
Speaker 3: robot not as some foreign alien invader, but as a
Speaker 3: cultural preserver.
Speaker 2: That's a fascinating phrase, cultural preserver. I hadn't thought of
Speaker 2: it like that.
Speaker 3: It's one hundred percent intentional. By having the robot learn
Speaker 3: kung fu, learn the traditions of the Shallon Temple, embody
Speaker 3: the Monkey King, the message is that this new technology
Speaker 3: isn't here to replace our culture, It's here to learn
Speaker 3: from it, to carry it forward in a new form.
Speaker 3: It frames the AI as a student of human history,
Speaker 3: not its replacement.
Speaker 2: I love that it's such a smart way to position
Speaker 2: it now. Unitree was clearly the star, but they weren't
Speaker 2: the only ones at the party. We mentioned a few
Speaker 2: other companies at the top. Let's talk about Noahtics Robotics, right.
Speaker 3: Noadics took a very very different approach. While Unitary was
Speaker 3: out there doing backflips and swinging swords, no It's went
Speaker 3: for the heart strings. They went for the social angle.
Speaker 2: They were in that comedy sketch, the one called Grandma's Favorite.
Speaker 3: Which is a classic Spring Festival Gala trope, the family
Speaker 3: comedy sketch. You know, there's always a misunderstanding a big
Speaker 3: family dinner. It's very relatable. And Noahdicgs brought out their
Speaker 3: Boomy and two and e one models, along with some
Speaker 3: custom biotic models.
Speaker 2: And these weren't fighting robots, they were acting. They were
Speaker 2: part of the family exactly.
Speaker 3: The focus here was entirely on social presence, on gesture recognition,
Speaker 3: on humorous timing, which.
Speaker 2: Is really really hard. Comedy is all about timing. If
Speaker 2: the robot pauses for a second too long or delivers
Speaker 2: a line too quickly, the entire joke just dies.
Speaker 3: And they pulled it off. It shows a completely different
Speaker 3: kind of intelligence. It's not just physical agility, it's social agility.
Speaker 3: They were interacting naturally with human actors in these everyday
Speaker 3: home scenarios. It paints a picture of a future where
Speaker 3: robots are helpers in the home, companions for the elderly,
Speaker 3: not just soldiers or factory workers.
Speaker 2: A much more gentle vision of.
Speaker 3: The future, much more approachable one.
Speaker 2: And then we had Magic Lab.
Speaker 3: Magic Lab brought the groove. They were all about dance
Speaker 3: and precision. They had their Magic bought Gen one and
Speaker 3: Z one models on something.
Speaker 2: So you're in that big musical number right the song
Speaker 2: We Are Made in China.
Speaker 3: Very subtle song title, very subtle.
Speaker 2: Couldn't miss the message there, but.
Speaker 3: It was effective. They started with these basic, almost robotic poses,
Speaker 3: but then as the music swelled, they joined the human
Speaker 3: dancers in a fully synchronized routine. And there was one
Speaker 3: specific moment the Z one robot doing a three hundred
Speaker 3: and sixty degree Thomas rotation.
Speaker 2: That's a gymnastics move, it is.
Speaker 3: It's that move you see on the pommel horse or
Speaker 3: on the floor in gymnastics where they spin their whole
Speaker 3: body around with their legs flared out, balanced on their hands. Again,
Speaker 3: it requires massive core strength and balance. It's showing that
Speaker 3: these robots have the range of motion and power of
Speaker 3: an elite athlete.
Speaker 2: And Galbit was there too. What was their contribution?
Speaker 3: Galbut was kind of the reliable backbone of the operation.
Speaker 3: They contributed a number of general purpose models and some
Speaker 3: G one variants that helped facilitate the group dynamics across
Speaker 3: various sketches and performances. Their big technical highlight is really
Speaker 3: their focus on in house hardware.
Speaker 2: Meaning they build their own parts.
Speaker 3: Exactly, specifically their joint modules and their dexterous hands. They're
Speaker 3: very proud of the fact that they don't have to
Speaker 3: import those critical components.
Speaker 2: And dexter's hands are the holy grail of robotics, aren't they.
Speaker 3: They really are. It's relatively easy to make a robot
Speaker 3: walk now, making you pick up an egg or a
Speaker 3: strawberry without queshing it, that's incredibly hard. So Galbot was
Speaker 3: there to show off that fine motor control, that dexterity
Speaker 3: and tying all this together.
Speaker 2: There was a software element too, we saw ByteDance was involved,
Speaker 2: the company behind.
Speaker 3: TikTok Yes, their Dubao AI chatbot. They integrated it for
Speaker 3: the dialogue segments of the show.
Speaker 2: So when the robots were speaking in the sketches, or
Speaker 2: when the human characters were interacting with an AI on
Speaker 2: a screen, that.
Speaker 3: Was Dubao correct. And that's a critical piece of the puzzle.
Speaker 3: It links the physical body the robot to the brain
Speaker 3: of the genitive AI ecosystem that's exploding right now. It
Speaker 3: shows the complete package the body of a unitary robot
Speaker 3: with the mind of a large language model like Dubao.
Speaker 2: You know. Seeing all this, this incredible display of capability,
Speaker 2: I have to ask, haven't we seen this before? I
Speaker 2: have this vague memory that Unitree did something last year?
Speaker 2: Am I wrong?
Speaker 3: No, You're not wrong. They did, But the comparison between
Speaker 3: last year and this year is, well, it's night and day.
Speaker 3: It is the single most stunning example of accelerated progress
Speaker 3: I have ever seen.
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's go back to twenty twenty five. Paint
Speaker 2: me a picture. What did that performance look like?
Speaker 3: So in twenty twenty five, Unitree had sixteen of their
Speaker 3: humanoids on the Gallas stage doing a Yang folk dance.
Speaker 2: Yo, that's the one with the colorful costumes on the.
Speaker 3: Handkerchief exactly, twirling handkerchiefs and honestly and honestly for the
Speaker 3: time for twenty twenty five. It was impressive. It was
Speaker 3: the first time a humanoid robot cluster had done anything
Speaker 3: like that on such a big stage. But it was
Speaker 3: visibly scripted. Oh so, the robots were a bit wobbly,
Speaker 3: their movements stiff, a little jerky. It looked like machines.
Speaker 3: Following a very strict, pre programmed set of instructions. There
Speaker 3: was no adaptability. If one of them had tripped or
Speaker 3: been bumped, it would have been a disaster for little formation.
Speaker 2: So impressive, but fragile.
Speaker 3: Very fragile. And this year, this.
Speaker 2: Year, we saw real time reactivity. We saw adaptive behaviors,
Speaker 2: we saw fault recovery from falls, we saw extreme acrobatics.
Speaker 2: We went from wobbly handkerchief twirl to seven point five
Speaker 2: rotation backspin while avoiding children in twelve months.
Speaker 3: It's insane leap.
Speaker 2: So how how is that even possible? How does an
Speaker 2: entire industry move that fast in just one year? More's
Speaker 2: law doesn't usually apply to hardware and physical machines like this.
Speaker 3: It's the result of a perfect storm, a confluence of
Speaker 3: factors all hitting at once. First, you have massive and
Speaker 3: I mean massive government subsidies pouring into the robotic sector
Speaker 3: as a national priority.
Speaker 2: So the money is there.
Speaker 3: The money is there in huge amounts. Second, you have
Speaker 3: aggressive talent poaching. You have the best and brightest engineers
Speaker 3: moving from big tech firms and advanced automotive companies into
Speaker 3: these robotic startups, bringing their expertise with them.
Speaker 2: And what about the supply chain that's always been a
Speaker 2: bottleneck for hardware.
Speaker 3: That's the hidden hero in all of this. The domestic
Speaker 3: supply chain for high performance actuators, for precision sensors, for
Speaker 3: energy dense batteries. It has matured incredibly fast in China,
Speaker 3: is becoming like the smartphone supply chain a decade ago, efficient,
Speaker 3: high quality, and crucially cheap.
Speaker 2: So they can build and test new prototypes much faster.
Speaker 3: They're iterating on hardware as fast as other companies iterate
Speaker 3: on software. And then you add the final ingredient, this
Speaker 3: ferocious private sector competition. These four companies we've talked about Unitry, Magic,
Speaker 3: lab galbut Nodics, they are at a flat out race
Speaker 3: against each other.
Speaker 2: And that competition is driving innovation.
Speaker 3: It's a frenzy and the result is what we saw
Speaker 3: last night, a quantum leap in capability. This is not
Speaker 3: an incremental update like a new camera on an iPhone.
Speaker 3: This is like going from a black and white flip
Speaker 3: phone to a modern smartphone in a single year.
Speaker 2: It's staggering, and predictably the world noticed. I mean, we
Speaker 2: talked about the viewership numbers, but the social media reaction
Speaker 2: was just instant and global.
Speaker 3: It completely exploded on Weebo and dw in. Of course
Speaker 3: that was a given, but it broke containment and went
Speaker 3: everywhere internationally. YouTube, x, Instagram read it. The clips were
Speaker 3: being shared and re shared everywhere within hours.
Speaker 2: What were the headlines saying? What was the general sentiment?
Speaker 3: Dazzling, insane, historic, a glimpse into twenty thirty. People were
Speaker 3: just floored. I think for a lot of people who
Speaker 3: have seen the slower, more cautious progress in the West,
Speaker 3: this looked like it came out of nowhere. It broke
Speaker 3: through a lot of the skepticism about humanoid robots.
Speaker 2: And I heard a certain tech billionaire, someone who has
Speaker 2: his own robot project, had something to say.
Speaker 3: Yes, Elon Musk. He chimed in on x reiterating something
Speaker 3: he said before that China, and he specifically name dropped
Speaker 3: U is the top competitor to Tesla's Optimus robot.
Speaker 2: That is high praise from a direct competitor and also
Speaker 2: probably a bit of a warning shot to his own team.
Speaker 3: I would imagine, well, absolutely, it validates the entire industry.
Speaker 3: When the biggest player in the game publicly acknowledges the competition,
Speaker 3: you know, it's real. It signals that this isn't a
Speaker 3: regional phenomenon anymore. This is a global race.
Speaker 2: But here is where it gets really really interesting for me.
Speaker 2: This is the part that signals a real shift. Usually,
Speaker 2: when you see high tech concept cars or futuristic robots,
Speaker 2: you think, Okay, that's cool, maybe i'll see one in
Speaker 2: ten years. But this wasn't just a show. It was
Speaker 2: in effect a commercial.
Speaker 3: It was the ultimate shop now TV moment.
Speaker 2: Jd dot Com, the massive Chinese e commerce site, actually
Speaker 2: listed the models that were featured during the gala.
Speaker 3: They did. As the robots were dancing and fighting on screen,
Speaker 3: a button popped up in the corner of the app
Speaker 3: by now, that.
Speaker 2: Is just brilliant marketing. And guess what happened.
Speaker 3: Let me guess. They didn't stay on the virtual shelf
Speaker 3: for very long.
Speaker 2: They sold out within minutes, minutes, minutes. And these are
Speaker 2: not cheap toys, are they. We're not talking about a
Speaker 2: couple hundred.
Speaker 3: Dollars, no, not at all. The high end Galbit units,
Speaker 3: for example, we're selling for around six hundred and thirty
Speaker 3: thousand u.
Speaker 2: On, which is nearly ninety thousand US.
Speaker 3: Dollars, almost ninety thousand dollars and people were buying them
Speaker 3: like they were the hot new concert tickets.
Speaker 2: Who is buying a ninety thousand dollars robot.
Speaker 3: Early adopters, research institutions, wealthy tech enthusiasts. But it shows
Speaker 3: that there is a market hunger for this. It's not
Speaker 3: just idle curiosity anymore. It's actual commercial demand. Unitary has
Speaker 3: publicly stated they aim to ship twenty thousand units in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty six alone.
Speaker 2: Twenty thousand humanoid robots. That is a lot of metal
Speaker 2: walking around.
Speaker 3: It's a massive scaling up. It's the moment you move
Speaker 3: from lab prototype to consumer electronic. It's a fundamental shift
Speaker 3: in the industry.
Speaker 2: So if we zoom all the way out, we have
Speaker 2: to look at the strategic implications here. Why do this?
Speaker 2: Why put this incredible display on the Spring Festival galat,
Speaker 2: the most watch show on Earth? Why make it such
Speaker 2: a big deal.
Speaker 3: It's never just about entertainment on a stage like that.
Speaker 2: Is it never? There's always a message.
Speaker 3: This serves as state orchestrated messaging. It's propaganda in the
Speaker 3: most literal sense of the word, propagating an idea, and
Speaker 3: it's a message to two audiences simultaneously, to the domestic audience,
Speaker 3: it's a source of immense national pride. To the global audience,
Speaker 3: it's a declaration China aims to dominate the global humanoid market.
Speaker 2: I've seen the projections for that market. They're astronomical trillions
Speaker 2: in value by twenty fifty.
Speaker 3: Hundreds of millions of units deployed. The goal is to
Speaker 3: make the phrase made in China synonymous with advanced robotics.
Speaker 3: It serves multiple purposes at once. It addresses future labor
Speaker 3: shortages from an aging population, It boosts natural pride, and
Speaker 3: perhaps most importantly, it fundamentally shifts the public perception of
Speaker 3: this technology.
Speaker 2: That's the key, right there, isn't it shifting perception?
Speaker 3: It moves robots from the realm of scary sci fi
Speaker 3: killer to inevitable, helpful appliance. When you see a robot
Speaker 3: interacting gently with a grandmother in a comedy sketch, or
Speaker 3: performing ancient martial arts alongside a child, you stop feeling
Speaker 3: it and you start accepting it. It normalizes the technology
Speaker 3: on a massive scale.
Speaker 2: There are always the concerns though, the dual use question
Speaker 2: always comes up.
Speaker 3: Of course, and analysts and defense circles are absolutely looking
Speaker 3: at this and thinking about the line between an industrial
Speaker 3: application and potential military application. A robot that can do
Speaker 3: parkour can navigate a complex battlefield. That's a reality. But
Speaker 3: the gala was very, very careful to focus strictly on
Speaker 3: positive harmony.
Speaker 2: It was all about culture, family, tradition and entertainment, a.
Speaker 3: Very soft, culturally resonant glove over a very very powerful
Speaker 3: iron hand of technological capability. It's about showing that these
Speaker 3: robots can integrate into society, not just disrupt it.
Speaker 2: So what does this all mean. Then We've seen the robots,
Speaker 2: we've analyzed the tech, we've looked at the sales figures
Speaker 2: and the global reaction. What's the fine I'll take away
Speaker 2: The twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Six Spring Festival Gala was a bold, unambiguous national statement.
Speaker 3: China is not just catching up in physical AI, it
Speaker 3: is sprinting ahead, and they were doing it by blending
Speaker 3: their ancient heritage with their future ambitions in a way
Speaker 3: that is incredibly savvy and powerful.
Speaker 2: It really does feel like we are standing on the
Speaker 2: edge of a cliff looking over at a completely new landscape.
Speaker 3: And we're not just looking. I think last night proves
Speaker 3: we are jumping off whether we're ready or not.
Speaker 2: So I want to leave our listeners with one final thought, Timlover,
Speaker 2: we just spent a lot of time talking about the
Speaker 2: incredible leap from twenty twenty five to twenty twenty six
Speaker 2: from wobbly handkerchief dances to fully autonomous weapon wielding backflips,
Speaker 2: from scripted movements to adaptive swarms, a.
Speaker 3: Massive, almost unbelievable acceleration.
Speaker 2: If that is what happened in just one year, what
Speaker 2: on earth will the stage look like in twenty twenty seven? And,
Speaker 2: maybe more importantly, as these cultural preservers move from the
Speaker 2: stage and into our factories, into our hospitals, into our homes,
Speaker 2: are we as a society for the speed at which
Speaker 2: science fiction is becoming a household appliance.
Speaker 3: That is the question we all need to start answering,
Speaker 3: and fast.