“Hello, I will arrange the bread and fruit separately.” Upon hearing the command from the host, the humanoid robot Qinglong extended its arms and gently picked up a piece of soft bread with its steel fingers, placing it down into the basket on the table.
At the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2024 in Shanghai, one of the most influential AI events within the global tech ecosystem, the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center on Thursday unveiled the open-source general-purpose humanoid robot Qinglong for the first time. The event marks the debut of China’s first full-sized general-purpose humanoid robot model, along with the release of its related open-source technologies.
Why it matters: The unveiling of Qinglong marks China’s entry into the advanced field of full-sized general-purpose humanoid robots. Its open-source initiative is intended to accelerate innovation, collaboration, and development within the global robotics and AI communities, potentially driving advancements in a range of industries.
Details: During the Summit on Humanoid Robots and Embodied Intelligence Development Forum at WAIC 2024, the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center demonstrated Qinglong’s operation and design concepts on site.
Qinglong has been independently developed by Humanoid Robots (Shanghai) Limited, a new R&D institution established by leading industry enterprises with a registered capital of one billion RMB ($140 million). The company was designated as the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China in May 2024.
Qinglong stands at 185cm tall and weighs 80kg, according to the company. It features a highly bionic torso and anthropomorphic motion control, supporting multi-modal mobility, perception, interaction, and manipulation. With 43 active degrees of freedom, Qinglong achieved a maximum joint peak torque of 400 N·m (Newton-meters) and 400 TOPs (Tera Operations Per Second) of computational power.
The humanoid robot combines mobile lower limbs for agile walking with lightweight, high-precision upper limbs for operations, the on-site presentation stated. The company claimed that the model supports rapid walking, agile obstacle avoidance, stable incline and decline movement, and resistance to impact interference, making it an ideal platform for developing general artificial intelligence software and hardware.
“In the Year of the Dragon this year, we named our humanoid robot Qinglong [meaning green dragon in Chinese] and initiated an open-source community for humanoid robotics,” said Jiang Lei, Chief Scientist of the National Local Joint Humanoid Robot Innovation Center. “Through open-sourcing, our goal is to introduce a new humanoid robot model annually, each named after one of the Chinese zodiac animals, to foster a humanoid robot innovation community unique to China,” he announced at the forum.
Jiang also announced the launch of the OpenLoong open-source community website, developed by the Innovation Center. The website includes the release of the robot’s hardware structure and parameters, with the embodied intelligence software package set to be open-sourced soon.
Context: On the same day, Tesla debuted its second-generation humanoid robot Optimus at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition Hall during WAIC 2024. According to Tesla booth staff, compared with the first generation, Optimus has improved its walking speed by 30% while maintaining upright posture. Its fingers have also evolved to perform delicate tasks such as gripping eggs and handling heavy objects.
Tesla plans to start limited production of humanoid robots next year, with over 1,000 Optimus units expected to assist in production tasks at Tesla factories, according to CEO Elon Musk.
