01. "Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing" Receives Mysterious Big Order
Recently, an embodied intelligence company called "Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing" became a hot topic in the investment circle after it was reported to be jointly developing large model welding robots with Panasonic. According to TMTPost, "Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing" completed its first major move since the company's establishment, reaching a strategic cooperation with Tangshan Panasonic (Panasonic's joint venture) to jointly develop advanced large model welding robots.
According to public information, Tangshan Panasonic is Panasonic's welding machine and robot R&D center and manufacturing base in Asia. It is the Hebei Province Welding Machine and Robot Engineering Technology Center, with a CNAS nationally accredited laboratory. It has strong technical capabilities in electrical and mechanical design, arc research, materials research, welding application process development, intelligent welding equipment and software development, and system integration.
How can a little-known small company reach a strategic cooperation with such an industry-recognized advanced intelligent welding solution provider?
Before signing with Tangshan Panasonic, it also received a strategic procurement order for 100 welding robots from a leading domestic heavy industry enterprise. This seems to explain a motive for its cooperation with the welding giant - the two sides complement each other's advantages to ultimately achieve product mass production, delivery, and commercial closed-loop!
This is one of the capabilities Lei Jun values most when investing in companies. The reason why Xiaomi's Cyberone humanoid robot has shown no signs of mass production is mainly because it has not formed a mature business model. Lei Jun has not solved the problem of who to sell and who will buy such an expensive consumer product after it is produced, so it has become a window muscle model staying in the laboratory, which can be shown off occasionally but shows no signs of landing.
It's worth mentioning that earlier, media such as 36Kr reported that a embodied intelligence company invested by Xiaomi Group, robotics scholar Wang Tianmiao, and Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence is Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing. This company was founded in early 2023. According to Qichacha's information, on June 5, 2023, it received a 100 million-level investment including Xiaomi Technology.
Lei Jun's investment vision is undeniable, and Wang Tianmiao is a top-level expert in the robotics industry. The joint investment in Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing has a clear purpose - to focus on the company's technological advantages and huge B2B potential at the commercial level.
Especially for Lei Jun personally, it may be another exploration to continue his AI robot dream. His laboratory's Cyberone project does not mean stagnation, but is temporarily shelved, while external companies' industrial robot projects that have already been commercialized are obviously easier to obtain monetization returns.
As Qiao Zhongliang, founder of Xiaoyu Intelligent, said, "In the robotics industry, the development cycle is longer than I expected. It may take 2 to 3 years to develop a commercial robot. The reason is that there is no standard industry chain, the development platform is not sound, and talent reserves are just starting... The key to large-scale mass production is not the product form, but what specific problems it solves."
From this perspective, Lei Jun is taking two approaches, so he can dynamically correct no matter how the wind changes!
Moreover, this time the intelligent welding robot jointly developed by Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing and Tangshan Panasonic has added the empowerment of AI large models, which was the missing story element when Lei Jun released Xiaomi's Cyberone in August 2022, and is also the hottest trend at present.
Just earlier this month, Lei Jun heavily promoted Xiaomi's smart phone factory on Weibo, and stated that Xiaomi has completed two smart factories this year, namely the mobile phone factory in Changping and the car factory in Yizhuang. Considering the huge investment scale and high intelligence of these factories, it is possible that in the future, after the robot mode is "internally and externally connected", it will also add the important task of creating revenue with self-produced AI robots, but of course, this is for later discussion.
Whether Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing's "one brain, multiple forms" concept will spark with AI large models remains to be seen, but it is certain that the dual-drive mode of "internal incubation + external investment" may be the optimal solution for Lei Jun and Xiaomi to layout the robot map. Little known is that in the intelligent robot track, Lei Jun's unwavering determination took root ten years ago!
02. Lei Jun and Wang Tianmiao's "Previous Fate" Again
Speaking of Lei Jun's connection with Wang Tianmiao or robots, it may have started with the story of the No. 9 balance car. In the A round of financing of Ninebot, there were shadows of Xiaomi and Shunwei Capital. People Better under Xiaomi led by Lei Jun and Shunwei Capital held as high as 10.91% shares respectively, and Ninebot also became one of the representative companies of Xiaomi's ecological chain.
Lei Jun's big investment in Ninebot was actually focused on the Beihang technology team endorsed by industry guru Professor Wang Tianmiao. Ninebot's Chairman and CEO Gao Lufeng and Co-founder and President Wang Ye, as well as Remebot's Founder and CEO Liu Da, V2X big data platform Bochuang Liandong's CEO Tao Wei, Elite Robot's Chairman and CEO Cao Yunan... are all outstanding students of Professor Wang Tianmiao.
According to incomplete statistics, in more than ten years, Wang Tianmiao has directly participated in investment or indirectly incubated nearly 70 projects. It is no exaggeration to say that he and the Beihang students he led have become a representative force of China's hard technology innovation. Especially in the field of intelligent robots, basically all the well-known companies have core teams that can be directly or indirectly organically associated with Professor Wang.
This graduate with a bachelor's degree in computer science from Xi'an Jiaotong University, a master's degree from Northwestern Polytechnical University, and a post-doctoral degree from Tsinghua University has recently focused on advanced robotics theory and technology research, with significant achievements in medical robots, mobile robots, embedded intelligent control, etc., and has long been recognized as a robotics guru in the industry!
Undoubtedly, Lei Jun's unwavering partnership with Professor Wang Tianmiao to pick Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing this time, in addition to trust in an old friend and the fact that this old friend himself favors this company, also has a bit of personal sentiment, because it is understood that among the initial members of Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing, there are big shots from Xiaomi's initial team.
For example, Qiao Zhongliang, the founder and CEO of Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing, is one of Xiaomi's initial generals. He is not only the head of MIUI development, but also the deputy general manager of Xiaomi's software and experience department. Wang Wenlin, the co-founder of Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing, also has experience as the general manager of Xiaomi's software system platform department. In addition, the team also has R&D elites from well-known big companies such as Huawei, ByteDance, and Microsoft.
This time, Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing has received orders and joined hands with giants to develop industrial robot products, with a future full of imagination. It can be said to be another incremental harvest in Lei Jun and Wang Tianmiao's robot industry map.
On July 22, Musk publicly announced on X that truly usable Optimus will be produced on a small scale in 2025, and is expected to achieve mass production in 2026, and will provide products (delivery) to other companies. Earlier at the shareholders' meeting, Musk also said that "at a price of $20,000 per unit, Tesla could make a trillion dollars a year."
Musk's AI robot journey is almost on the eve of realizing his dream!
How far away is the dawn for Lei Jun and others?
References:
[Xiaomi and Wang Tianmiao invest in embodied intelligence technology company "Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing" - 36Kr]
[Musk: Humanoid robots will achieve mass production and be provided to external companies in two years - The Paper]
[Beihang Professor Wang Tianmiao: What are the development opportunities and challenges of Chinese robots? - Leiphone]
[Former head of Xiaomi MIUI development Qiao Zhongliang: Founded Xiaoyu Intelligent Manufacturing in early 2023 - Kanchai.com]
[Xiaomi-invested embodied intelligence company has new moves, will develop large model welding robots - TMTPost APP]