Unitree Goes Public

robotics diffusion, AGI for the real world, and US-China entanglement

This post originally appeared in ChinaTalk.

“Unprofitability is a near-universal challenge because AI robotics, despite massive advances in the past few years, is still an early-stage technology.”

In 2017, Hangzhou-based robotics firm Unitree 宇树科技 launched its first quadruped, Laikago. Laika was the name of the Soviet space dog onboard Sputnik 2, and the American English pronunciation of “go” is similar to that of the Chinese word for dogs, 狗 gǒu. Unitree’s battery-powered tribute to Laika wasn’t fuzzy, but walked on four feet and navigated through basic obstacles.

Unitree founder Wang Xingxing 王兴兴 has long held faith in the potential of robotic canines. Since 2020, when Unitree started gaining media attention, he has insisted in multiple interviews that humans are drawn to four-legged creatures and will have a natural fondness for their artificial counterparts.

Wang Xingxing with a Laikago in 2017. (Source: Bilibili)