End-side AI continues to deduce, and desktop robots, which are regarded as one of the new carriers of AI, have also been in the news recently. After Apple was revealed to be promoting the development of desktop robot projects, Tianchen Times Technology Co., Ltd. released TB-CE003 home desktop robot, which can provide a variety of AI intelligent functions; Fenda Technology(002681. SZ) recently revealed that the mass production and delivery of companion AI desktop robots is imminent.

Lu Hanchen, director of the high-tech robot industry research institute, told the Financial Associated Press reporter that desktop robots are not a new species, as early as 2016-2017 in the wave of AI boom there are many players, but most of the manufacturers have failed, the core is that the weak artificial intelligence at that time is still difficult to meet people's expectations and needs for intelligence. Driven by this wave of AI models, the number of players entering the desktop AI robot is increasing rapidly around the world, including many technology giants.

Lu Hanchen believes that the biggest advantage in China should be the completeness of the supply chain, and many key hardware are expected to reuse the original 3C electronics and robots. AIoT chip manufacturer Rockchip Micro (603893.SH) said in an interview with a reporter from the Financial Associated Press that the products in the form of desktop robots have adopted the company's chip scheme earlier, and some desktop robots on the market also use the company's SoC chip as the main control. Guoguang Electric(002045. SZ) revealed, "The demand for voice interaction for AI hardware has increased, and some of the company's acoustic modules can be applied to the field of desktop robots. ”

Press the "accelerator button" when the app lands?

In the secondary market, Fenda Technology (002681. SZ) has risen by more than 23% since December, once recording "8 days and 6 boards". The company replied to the "robot" information on the investor interactive platform several times this month.

It is reported that the companion AI desktop robot developed by Fenda Technology in cooperation with customers has started trial production and is expected to be mass-produced and delivered in December. The product is equipped with a bionic behavior system and ChatGPT, which can autonomously interact with users in real time according to the user's and the surrounding environment's touch, vision, voice and other commands.

In order to further understand the actual landing of the above products, the reporter of the Financial Associated Press called the Fenda Technology Securities Department as an investor, and the staff said, "We are making a complete machine for customers, (companion AI desktop robots) will be shipped in small quantities this month, and the products will be sold to overseas markets." ”

At present, there are still many domestic manufacturers involved in desktop robot related business. Xinshida (002527. SZ) securities department said, "The company has desktop robot products. According to him, the important parts of the robot include the servo system, the reducer and the controller. At present, the company's controller has come out of the fourth generation, and an intuitive change is that the size is very small and can be directly placed in the robot base.

In terms of chips, the relevant person in charge of Rockchip said, "Due to the different functions and uses of various desktop robots, we understand that the chip models used in many products are also different. Some small desktop companion robots only need entry-level SoC chips, and AI interaction capabilities can be completed by connecting to the cloud. There are also some desktop robots that use relatively high-performance SoC chips, which can implement a variety of functions locally and have the ability to directly run device-side AI models. ”

Espressif Systems (688018.SH) revealed that various cloud models have appeared on the market, and Espressif's processor chips with connectivity attributes are the key to applying AI models to devices. The staff of the company's securities department said, "Some downstream customers use our chips to make desktop robots, but it is not clear which chip is used." ”

Rockchip told the Financial Associated Press reporter that the company currently has a number of chips that can be used in the category of desktop robots. Taking the desktop robot equipped with the company's RK3576 as an example, with the blessing of the company's chip, it can support the same display or different display of large and small screens, and realize a variety of AI intelligent functions such as video call, remote care, far-field and near-field voice interaction, AI digital human, and expression robot. The product is currently in mass production.

The prospects of the industry are promising

Lu Hanchen said that desktop robots are essentially intelligent terminals, and compared with smartphones, it emphasizes the ability to interact with humans. From the perspective of product functions, it can be mainly divided into two types: functional and pet. From the perspective of development prospects, as a C-end oriented smart product, its potential market space can basically refer to the calculation logic of smart phones, and the market ceiling is high enough.

According to previous reports, Apple is advancing the development of a desktop robot project, combining an iPad-like display with a robotic arm, and the product is planned to be available as early as 2026 or 2027, with a target price of about $1,000.

Market analysis believes that with the development of emerging technologies such as AI, sensing technology, and human-computer interaction, a number of R&D and promotion teams have emerged in the market, and desktop robots are expected to get rid of the title of "high-priced toys", and do something in the field of smart home and other services, desktop entertainment robots may become a new growth point in the domestic robot industry.

In Lu Hanchen's view, for manufacturers, product positioning is one of the biggest challenges, and the superposition of many functions will undoubtedly be a point of no return. In addition, AI capabilities are likely to be the key point for manufacturers to widen the gap.

It is understood that Xinshida's desktop robot products are mainly produced and provided by its wholly-owned subsidiary, Shenzhen Zhongweixing Technology Co., Ltd., which is the first company in China to complete the research and development of integrated drive and control products and use them for robot control. The above-mentioned person said, "We are also always paying attention to the future development of AI and making some technical reserves in this regard." ”

"Not only desktop robots, but also other forms of robots are now continuing to grow rapidly." Rockchip said that the robot solution is one of the company's important product lines. Rockchip's SoC chips currently play the main control function in various robots, and can provide 0.2TOPs to 6TOPs of end-side AI computing power. Among them, RK3588 and RK3576 are equipped with 6TOPs NPU processing units, which can support the deployment of mainstream 0.5B~3B parameter level models on the device side, and can realize functions such as translation, summarization, and Q&A through large language models, and can realize multi-modal search and recognition, and empower all kinds of robots.

"Based on the advantages of various technologies, products, and scenarios of AIoT, we will continue to provide customers with complete and suitable chip solutions, maintain a rapid new product development and technology iteration cycle, evolve to higher performance and more advanced processes, and better provide suitable solutions for the growing demand for robot performance." Rockchip further said.