January 30, 2025 (CE Noticias Financieras) –
By 2026, we should have humanoid robots in homes helping with laundry, vacuuming and dishes, at least in the testing phase, according to Peter Diamandis, author, futurist, investor, physician and engineer, in a recent episode of the TechFirst podcast. By 2040, there could be as many as 10 billion of these robots globally in all sectors of the economy, and their labor could be as cheap as $10 per day.
"If you rent it like you rent a car, a $30,000 car, your monthly cost is $300," Diamandis explains. "And that translates incredibly to $10 a day and 40 cents an hour. So you'll have a workforce waiting for any order from you. You know, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, changing the baby's diapers," he adds.
Today, most robot manufacturers are focused on developing tools for manual labor: warehousing, logistics, manufacturing. Recently, we have seen Agility Robotics' Digit gain gainful employment, followed by Figure's latest model, Figure 02.
The economic impact of robots worldwide
But in the future, they will be everywhere in the economy, says Diamandis: in healthcare, manufacturing, the service sector, public and urban spaces, transportation and even entertainment. It is such a transformative change that analysts don't yet fully understand how to estimate its value. Goldman Sachs projects that the sale of humanoid robots will be a $38 billion industry by 2035, while Ark Investestimates that the resulting economic value of their work could reach $24 trillion.
The reason for this wide difference in projections lies in analysts' views on what jobs humanoid robots will fill. If these robots reach a high level of efficiency, their economic impact will be gigantic.
"Fifty percent of the Gross Global Product (GGP) goes to pay humans for their daily work, i.e., human labor," notes Diamandis' recent autonomous robots report, quoting Brett Adcock, CEO of Figure AI. "That represents a $40 billion annual market. That's ten times larger than the entire transportation industry combined," he continues.
Diamandis identified 16 leading and emerging companies in the humanoid robot sector, along with models of their autonomous robots:
Tesla (Optimus)
Figure AI (Figure 02)
Agility Robotics (Digit)
Boston Dynamics (Atlas)
Unitree (H1, G1)
1X Technologies (NEO)
Agibot (Yuanzheng A2)
Apptronik (Apollo)
Beijing HRIC (Tiangong)
EngineAI (SE01)
Engineered Arts (Ameca)
Fourier Intelligence (GR-2)
Kepler (Forerunner K2)
Robot Era (Star1)
Sanctuary AI (Phoenix)
Xpeng
Where are these companies located? Almost exclusively in the United States and China: six are in the United States, eight in China, one in the United Kingdom and one in Canada. At the moment, there are no companies from the European Union, South America or Africa.
Tesla (USA)
Figure AI (USA)
Agility Robotics (USA)
Boston Dynamics (USA)
Unitree (China)
1X Technologies (USA)
Agibot (China)
Apptronik (USA)
Beijing HRIC (China)
EngineAI (China)
Engineered Arts (UK)
Fourier Intelligence (China)
Kepler (China)
Robot Era (China)
Sanctuary AI (Canada)
Xpeng (China)
The big unknown at the moment is: which companies will win the battle to supply these billions of robots? And which countries will lead this race? Both questions are closely related, as the development of autonomous robots could be the economic, financial and social battle that defines the future on multiple levels.
In economic and financial terms, the companies and countries that succeed in developing efficient and effective humanoid robots first will have a substantial cost and workforce volume advantage, which represents a key factor for global economic power, especially for nations with an aging population.
Socially, countries or geopolitical blocs that solve the challenge of autonomous humanoid robots will have the opportunity to reshape their societies in a world where the cost of labor approaches zero. This is a complex challenge, controversial and full of implications, but one that could unleash human potential by eliminating the need for repetitive and mechanical labor.
There is even a military level to this: any observer of the Russia-Ukraine war knows that drones, autonomous and semi-autonomous robots, and artificial intelligence increasingly represent the bulk of the weaponry that is defining victory on the battlefield. This is already happening: recently, the Anduril company announced a $1 billion investment in a large-scale factory in Ohio to "redefine the scale and speed with which autonomous systems and weapons can be produced for the United States and its allies and partners."
The scope of the potential transformation in this area is hard to overestimate.
How much will humanoid robots cost?
A big question is: how much will robots cost? The answer will determine who will be able to afford to employ them: which countries, which companies (and for which jobs), and which people. Peter Diamandis estimates that the equivalent of about $30,000 will be the price reached in a decade or so, which would translate into about $10 per day in leasing costs.
This changes a lot of things. What made China successful in the last 40 years is their low cost of labor," Diamandis points out. "They had a lot of workers at a very low cost who could manufacture almost anything, but the cost of living went up in China, so the hourly rate of labor went up as well.
But this is not only happening in China, but also in the United States. The minimum wage in California is $20 an hour," adds Diamandis. "How can you not replace a worker with a robot that costs 40 cents an hour? A robot that works 24/7, no drug testing, no conflicts with your partner, no sick days. It's a pretty compelling option," he says.
*Reported by Forbes US.
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