Xiaomi Unveils Remarkably Cheaper Robodog; 4Paradigm Files for IPO; NIO Driver Dies in Crash With NOP Active

China’s AI news in the week of August 15, 2021

Xiaomi launches CyberDog, an open-source robodog companion

Not surprised: Xiaomi is coming to prime time: the Chinese smartphone maker was crowned as the world’s No.1 smartphone maker in global smartphone sales rankings through June 2021; the stock price almost tripled in the last two years, and its foray into the smart vehicle production won accolades from Xiaomi fans.

There’s more. At its recent Xiaomi MIX 4 launch event, CEO Lei Jun unveiled a surprising engineering product: CyberDog, a bio-inspired quadruped robodog that highly assembles Boston Dynamic’s most famous robot “Spot”. Xiaomi said it will open source the project to encourage third-party developers to devise new capabilities with full imagination.

Tell me everything: CyberDog features a maximum torque output and rotation speed up to 32N·m/220Rpm. It is able to perform a range of high-speed movements up to 3.2m/s, and complicated actions such as backflips.

The brain of CyberDog is the NVIDIA Jetson Xavier NX platform, an AI Supercomputer for Embedded and Edge Systems which includes 384 CUDA Cores, 48 Tensor Cores, a 6 Carmel ARM CPU, and 2 deep learning acceleration engines. CyberDog adopts a sensor fusion solution that includes touch sensors, cameras, ultrasonic sensors, GPS modules, and more. Given 3 type-C ports and 1 HDMI port, developers can also mount other sensors like a motion camera or LiDAR upon the CyberDog. Xiaomi also leverages technologies built within smartphones like imaging technology and voice interaction to enhance the capabilities of CyberDog.

What's the price? 1,000 units of CyberDog priced at RMB9,999 yuan, or $1543, have been released. In comparison, Spot is available for $74,500.

Xiaomi is not the only Chinese company that develops futuristic quadrupedal robots. Earlier this year, Tencent’s robodog Max was introduced by its Robotics X Lab and can travel up to 25 km/h. Unitree, a Shenzhen-based startup, also introduced its Spot look-alike Unitree Go1 starting at $2,700.

Chinese AI unicorn 4Paradigm files for Hong Kong IPO

What’s new: Beijing-based AI unicorn Fourth Paradigm Technology, or 4Paradigm, has submitted its IPO filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange backed by co-sponsors Goldman Sachs and CICC, according to HKEX (Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited).

What is 4Paradigm? Founded in 2014, 4Paradigm aims to “provide world-leading AI platforms and solutions that catalyze progression of society and growth of enterprises”, according to its prospectus. The company said it was the largest player by revenue in the platform-centric decision-making AI market in China in 2020.

4Paradigm began with AI offerings in the finance and banking sector like enhanced customer marketing management, internal operation optimization, and risk control like fraud detection. The company has raked over $1.1 billion from five state-owned banks as well as Ant Group and Sequoia China. Its solutions have expanded to sectors like retail, manufacturing, energy and power, telecommunications, and healthcare, according to the prospectus. On June 30, 2021, 4Paradigm reached strategic cooperation with electric vehicle battery giant CATL to build an AI platform for its manufacturing.

4Paradigm Co-founder CEO Dr. Dai Wenyuan served as the principal researcher at Huawei Noah’s Ark Lab before starting his own venture. He is a top researcher in the field of transfer learning and automated machine learning. Co-founder Dr. Yang Qiang is the Chair Professor at HKUST in Hong Kong, an ACM Fellow, and the founding head of Noah’s Ark Lab.

Losing money: 4Paradigm reported its revenue of RMB128 million, RMB460 million, RMB942 million, and RMB788 million in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021H1 respectively. The company hasn’t made profits yet, recording an operating loss of RMB336 million, RMB551 million, RMB560 million, and RMB857 million, accordingly.

NIO Driver Dies While Driving With Semi-Autonomous NOP

Sad news: Emerging technologies bring new risks, particularly when it comes to (semi-)autonomous driving. Five years ago, Tesla driver Joshua Brown died while driving on Tesla Autopilot. A Tesla enthusiast and a YouTuber, Brown became the first known fatality of smart electric vehicles when his high-end Tesla Model S sedan collided with a semitrailer truck on a Florida highway. The Chinese EV upstart NIO just met the same trouble.

What happened? On August 12, A NIO ES8 driver died in a traffic accident in the Hanjiang section of the Shenyang-Haikou expressway where the speed limit is 120 km/h. The vehicle first hit roadside guardrails and then collided with a highway maintenance vehicle on the fast lane, according to the Chinese media. NIO ES8 is an all-electric, 7-seater full-size luxury SUV.

The victim driver Lin Wenqin is a 31-year-old Chinese entrepreneur who founded several companies and owned restaurant chains with more than 500 franchises in China, according to an obituary of Meiyihao, one of Lin’s companies.

The obituary also claimed the accident occurred when Lin was driving on NOP (Navigate on Pilot), a major feature of NIO’s semi-autonomous product NIO Pilot. Similar to Tesla FSD’s Navigate on Pilot, NOP enables the vehicle to drive on and off-ramps, pass other vehicles, merge lanes, and navigate planned routes. 

Nio spokespeople said the company is cooperating with the authorities to investigate the cause of the accident. More information will be released upon the official statement.

This is the second traffic death involving NIO’s vehicles in 15 days. On July 30, an EC6, a 5-seater crossover SUV, caught on fire after hitting a barrier stone pier in Shanghai's Pudong New Area. The driver died. No semi-autonomous driving system was known activated.

Investment News:

• Chinese autonomous driving upstart Pony.ai has reportedly halted its IPO plan through SPAC in the U.S. at a valuation of $12 billion. The Beijing-based startup “failed to gain assurances from Beijing that it would not become a target of a crackdown against Chinese technology companies”, Reuters reported.

• QCraft.AI, a Beijing-based self-driving startup specialized in robobus, announced it has bagged $100 million in its Series A+ funding round, led by Yunfeng Fund and Yuansheng Capital. Founded by Waymo veterans in 2019, QCraft.AI develops a simulation platform for autonomous driving named Gigafactory and applied well-trained technologies to robotaxis, robobuses, and other types of vehicles. Its robobus Longzhou One, which can carry 9 passengers and travel up to 50 km/h, started trial operations on open roads in Suzhou last October and expanded to five cities.

• Shukun Technology, a Beijing-based medical AI startup developing AI-powered diagnostics systems for detecting cardiovascular diseases, announced it has raised RMB700 million ($108 million) in a new funding round. Investors include Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Primavera Capital Group, Sequoia China, and more. Founded in 2017, the company just secured almost RMB1 billion ($154 million) funding in 2020. Its products are used in more than 400 hospitals in China, according to Yicai.