While it seems that another humanoid robot is being released every week, we've yet to see one move as quickly or with as much precision as the model just released by Chinese company, Astribot. We dare you to not be impressed.
The AI-powered humanoid robot space is starting to get almost as crowded as the cereal aisle at your local supermarket. Last month alone, we were treated to two impressive offerings from OpenAI. One, a laundry-folding bot from Norwegian collaborators 1X that showed off impressive "soft-touch" skills, and the other a bot from collaborators Figure that demonstrated truly next-gen natural language reasoning ability. Then this month, Boston Dynamics blew us away with the astounding dexterity embedded in its new Atlas robot and China's UBTech impressed its soft-touch speaking bot, Walker S. And the list goes on.
But today's video showing off the skills of an AI-powered bot known as S1 from a relatively unknown Senzhen-based subsidiary of Stardust Intelligence called Astribot truly gave us the chills. It's fast. It's precise. And it's unlike anything we've seen so far.
According to Astribot, the humanoid can execute movements with a top speed of 10 meters per second, and handle a payload of 10 kg per arm. The fact that its website shows that an adult male falls well short of both of these and other Astribot metrics shouldn't be cause for alarm at all. That speed, as the video shows, is fast enough to pull a tablecloth out from under a stack of wine glasses without having them come crashing to the ground.
But the bot is not only speedy, but also incredibly precise, doing everything from opening and pouring wine, to gently shaving a cucumber, to flipping a sandwich in a frying pan, to writing a bit of calligraphy. The video also shows that the robot is very adept at mimicking human movements, which means it should be a good learner.
Of course, the video has raised a few questions for us. Does the S1 have a lower half? All of the humanoids we've seen so far have some means of locomotion, but this seems to be a fairly stationary bot. We're also curious to know a bit about Astribot's history and backing and the likelihood that the S1 will eventually enter production. We've reached out to the company for some answers and will update this article if we find out more.
For now, we can glean from Astribot's website that the company was founded in 2022 in Shenzhen, that the robot took about a year to develop, and that it is expected to be commercially available later this year. The site also indicates that the parent company, Stardust Intelligence, was founded by Lai Jie, who also worked with Tencent Robotics Laboratory, Baidu, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The company also states: "The name of Astribot comes from the ancient Latin proverb 'Ad astra per aspera,' which means 'a journey through hardship to reach stardust,' which represents the company's long-term plan and firm commitment to the development and popularization of AI robot technology."
If Astribot does indeed have staying power, it is certainly going to heat up the space and gain the attention of the other humanoid robot makers. Let the bot wars begin!
Source: Astribot
There may be some advancements represented in the video, that the company is appropriately touting. But, it really feels like a fraud when the video mostly has theatrics that don't represent actual abilities.