On September 12th, a humanoid robot came off the production line every ten minutes at a production facility with a floor area of 14,000 square meters in Liuzhou, Guangxi. A scene once seen only in science fiction movies played out in the workshop: robots manufacturing other robots. The Cruzr series of humanoid robots handle tasks such as depalletizing, palletizing, and material feeding, transporting heavy components to tooling stations. Collaborative robotic arms work in tandem with fixtures that rotate 360 degrees to tighten more than 2,000 screws of various specifications on each fully assembled robot. Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) and unmanned forklifts shuttle through the aisles, eventually delivering finished products to a fully automated vertical warehouse that occupies just 65 square meters but can accommodate 112 humanoid robots.

This is UBTECH's Liuzhou Industrial Humanoid Robot Super Smart Factory, the world's first intelligent manufacturing base for humanoid robots, with a planned annual production capacity of 10,000 units. "The challenges involved in mass-producing these robots are rare in the history of human manufacturing," said Zhou Jian, founder, chairman of the board, and CEO of UBTECH, in July this year during the launch of the U1 series of consumer-grade, highly biomimetic robots. The U1 Pro features 88 high-precision joints with multiple degrees of freedom throughout its body and contains as many as two to three thousand components in its head alone. Ramping up production capacity, controlling production yields, and maintaining delivery consistency are all critical, as a problem at any stage could affect the entire process.

Eight of the companies in Guangdong's "Ten Steeds" lineup of humanoid robotics firms are headquartered in Shenzhen, with each pursuing a distinctly different path. AI² Robotics secured a major industry contract worth 500 million yuan from HKC for 1,000 units over three years, marking the official entry of humanoid robots into semiconductor display manufacturing facilities. These robots are not merely being showcased in showrooms, but are being deployed in regular production. LimX Dynamics completed a pre-IPO funding round of nearly 200 million US dollars, bringing its total financing to 400 million US dollars over six months. Meanwhile, Leju Robot, another Guangdong-based humanoid robotics company, established China's first automated production line with a 10,000-unit-class capacity in Nanhai District, Foshan. The line produces one unit every 30 minutes, and the company has already delivered thousands of robots from its KUAVO series to the market.

观察｜每十分钟下线一台！机器人造机器人，不再是科幻

9月12日，广西柳州。1.4万平方米的厂房里，每隔十分钟，就有一台人形机器人从产线上走下来。车间里上演着人们只在科幻影片里见过的一幕：机器人动手制造机器人。Cruzr系列人形机器人承担拆垛、码垛、物料上料，把沉重的构件送到工装台前；协作机械臂搭配360度旋转工装台，锁紧一台整机两千多颗规格不一的螺丝；AGV小车、无人叉车穿梭在通道，成品最终送入一座仅65平方米，却可容纳112台人形机器人的全自动立体仓库。

这里是优必选柳州工业人形机器人超级智慧工厂，也是全球首个规划万台产能的人形机器人智能制造基地。“这种量产的难度，在人类生产制造史上也是罕见的。”今年7月，优必选创始人、董事会主席兼CEO周剑在发布消费级超仿生机器人U1系列时这样感叹。U1 Pro全身搭载88个高精度自由度关节，头部零配件高达两三千个，产能爬坡、良率控制、交付一致性，哪个环节出问题都不行。

广东业内提出的人形机器人“十骏”方阵里，八家企业总部落在深圳，各家走出截然不同的路线。智平方拿下惠科5亿元、三年千台的行业大单，人形机器人正式进入半导体显示工厂，不是展厅演示，而是参与常态化生产；逐际动力完成近2亿美元Pre-IPO轮融资，半年累计融资4亿美元；同属广东阵营的乐聚，在佛山南海搭建国内首条万台级人形机器人自动化产线，30分钟即可下线一台，已向市场交付数千台夸父系列。

文｜记者 沈婷婷
图｜受访者提供
译｜黄健新
英文审校｜盛嘉