Welcome to FinTech TV.
I'm Remy Blur.
Tesla, Boston Dynamics and Video are leading the US race to build the next generation of robots, but a new wave of smaller companies are also chasing the same goal building hardware, software, and data to power mass produce multitasking robots.
Now, as AI learns to move in the physical world, some experts say robots could become common in workplaces as well.
Supporters see lower labor costs and more human free time, while critics warn many humanoids are far from truly autonomous.
Well, joining me live at the New York Stock Exchange to talk the growing presence of humanoid robots, and also quite is Brendan Ahern, CEO of Pras, and Teddy Haggerty, Robot, CEO.
Gentlemen, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you thank you.
Well, we are joined by a special guest right here.
So first tell us about this humanoid.
Yes, this is the Unitree G1.
It's the ultimate.
You see some hands on and you can see it on TV, but this is really the ultimate developer package right now for anyone looking to get an R&D, universities or any company trying to get into robotics.
This is like your This is the package, yeah.
And speaking of which, what is under the hood?
What can this model do?
So actually relating to the new Koid ETF that Crane Shares has, there's an Nvidia computer inside here.
You have Intel depth sensors up top.
There's a Livebox 360 LIDAR, so a lot of other companies embedded into the Unitree chassis.
Yeah, and of course, Brendan, I do have to ask you, you've been traveling overseas, so how does this tech stack up against what we're seeing overseas?
Well, I think traveling to Asia, you kind of see and experience firsthand or maybe Asian economies are a little bit ahead of us here in the US, but obviously the US is going to be shortly coming up, you know, obviously Tesla shareholders really just voted to turn the company into a humanoid robotics company, but you know, the company that Teddy represents with with the RoboStore is a Chinese company called Unitree which is It's going to be coming public in Hong Kong in a few months and I think it's really going to put what China's been up to, but this is a one is a global event.
There's great Japanese companies, great South Korean companies, as well as an ecosystem effect that it's rare earth companies, it's the auto companies that don't realize they're going to become robotics, the OEMs, the.
Art suppliers, so it's really we created the coin ETF because it is an ecosystem and this is really what an ETF is supposed to do for you really buy a basket, 50 names all across the globe.
Yeah, and Brendan, you just mentioned a handful of sectors here and when we think about what goes into actually building one of these humanoid robots, the question is what about the use cases?
Where do you see this going?
It's, I mean, it's completely global.
You can get, you can in theory you can replace a human in almost any activity with a robot, but what we're watching a lot of companies get into is actually customer facing applications.
So where can we deploy robots in a way that people are going to see them tomorrow?
And I think it's a lot of companies getting out there and saying, hey, we're looking at this as innovation.
We're trying to figure out how we implement robotics tomorrow, and we want to show the world that we're about innovation, so.
Watch a lot of customer facing, but manufacturing, law enforcement.
I mean, the sectors go on and on.
Yeah, and when we think about investment themes for 2025, artificial intelligence has been a key theme here.
So when we're talking about AI integration into something like this humanoid, how does that work?
So not only does it have its own base AI where it's constantly taking data and figuring out where it's stepping, but also there's a huge impact on what we're watching with like OpenAI, DeepSeek, and these other.
Companies who are building this infrastructure on the data side because once you hook up theoid we're going to call him today, this G1s the internet, we can actually start using LLMs to have him perform almost anything and we start having that same deep learning, machine learning through actually over the internet and leveraging the data centers that are out there almost this new credit profile that you're seeing OpenAI and having different business models based off these pinging credits.
To actually use the data.
So it's an interesting ecosystem as it's really opening up to be.
It's funny because we actually named the COID ETF.
It's humanoid robotics and embodied intelligence.
And when you think about the AI story, we don't really hear about the robotics, but we really envision that the robotics combined with the AAI, that's the nitrous oxide, that's what actually brings this to life, so to speak.
And that's where you know, Huawei is predicting 90% of Chinese households will have a humanoid robot by 2035.
Morgan Stanley saying a billion humanoids by 2050.
So, so I think you know even this this recent rare earth has been in the headlines.
I mean, how much of the rare earth demand is going to be because of the robotics angle and so yeah, we see this whole host of tailwinds really lifting the sector, but picking the winners is going to be hard, which is why we have 50 names in the ETF.
Yeah, and Brendan, you bring up a lot of key points there, but when it comes to technology such as this, even though we're talking about the global landscape, how does national security come into play?
Well, I think one, you know, this is a Unitree robot, it's Chinese manufactured, but then it's the real brains of it, to Teddy's point, it's US tech.
So it's really leveraging, I think, the best of what both countries offer industrial manufacturing know-how combined with really the strong implementation use case around the technology and particularly the AI.
And of course with something like this, the question is price point, right?
So give us an idea of what we're talking about entry level to say top tier.
Yeah, so I mean Unitree came out in R1.
They have price point.
They say it's released in about $6000.
I think it just shows that we're getting this at more of a consumer value of when the technology is there.
I love to tell people the hardware is above the software currently, so the G1.
Capable of a million different things, but right now what's based out of the application, a lot of it is really not towards consumer yet and really fulfilling that role of, hey, go get me something from the fridge or help me clean this.
But all those over the air updates are coming, right?
So R1 low price point relatively speaking, this G one right here is about $67,000 but this is like the maxed out version.
So this is really meant for.
On gain development, but we're showing a big range, and I think that big range is showing the world that the price point is going to be lower on the consumer to get people intro to robotics or understanding that you can have fun with this thing or it's going to start having these over the air updates to do certain basic tasks and also we have something like this G1 Ultimate that has everything ready to go for research and development of how we deploy robots into a company.
And finally, gentlemen, before I let you go, of course when it comes to doing growth forecasts, you need to have a better understanding of timelines.
So what's on the horizon and what are your expectations?
Oh man, that's, it's hard because every day we watch the developer side of this just go like full force.
So every month it gets better every day or Watching improvements of what's coming out next.
So I think it's moving at a speed that we've never seen before.
I think this is this whole investment space is a little bit under the radar.
I don't think people realized the games already started and we're already a few winnings in and that's why I think with Unitre's coming IPO, it's really going to put the space on the map.
It's going to be one of the largest, if not the largest IPO globally year to date.
So I think it's going to be an aha moment for investors globally.
And again, I think a lot of the thematics that you're seeing AI, rarer, Tesla shareholder vote, this is all about robotics.
People just don't really, they've not necessarily connected all the dots yet.
Well, it was a pleasure having you here at the New York Stock Exchange.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Thanks for having us.
Thank you.
Thank you.
