Xpeng announces mass production of humanoid robot IRON in China
Chinese technology company Xpeng has announced the start of mass production of the humanoid robot IRON. As Live Science reports, the company plans to manufacture the devices at its existing production facilities but did not disclose the planned volumes.
Xpeng said that IRON could become the first humanoid robot to leave the production line independently. Earlier, the prototype went viral after a demonstration in which it was cut open on stage to show that there was no person inside.
IRON specifications
The robot has a fabric covering and is designed with various body types and gender presentations. It is approximately 173 centimeters tall and weighs 65 kilograms. The prototype has 82 degrees of freedom, including 22 in each hand, and its maximum movement speed reaches about 2 meters per second.
According to the developers, IRON can receive instructions, plan actions, navigate space, and avoid obstacles without using trial and error. The company also says it has an autonomous charging function: when the battery level is low, the robot is expected to find a designated charging booth and connect to it.
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AI and deliveries
Xpeng said it uses the same “world model” for IRON as it does in its AI-powered electric vehicles and flying-car prototypes. The robot combines three systems: a “vision-language-action” model that links visual perception, voice commands, and movements; a vision-language model; and a “vision-language-task/reasoning” model. According to the company, the latter gives the robot the ability to reason about assigned tasks.
Each IRON is equipped with three Turing AI chips with a combined performance of 2,250 trillion operations per second. According to Xpeng, this makes it possible to run a model comparable to Meta Llama 3.2 locally without an internet connection.
Initially, the company will place the robots in its own showrooms and technology campuses to test potential use cases. In 2027, Xpeng plans to begin deliveries to commercial customers, primarily in China, for customer service and conducting tours. In the future, the developers also envision using the robots at home for cleaning and folding laundry.
