Apple manufacturing partner Foxconn is set to deploy humanoid robots to help make iPhones.
Chinese robot maker UBTech has signed a new partnership with Foxconn to bring its Walker S1 bots to production lines.
According to UBTech, the robots will be tasked with ‘complicated and delicate production’ duties.
In preparation, the company has been training its humanoid robots to carry out production-related tasks for months.
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The humanoid robots have been in training at Foxconn
Numerous companies have already introduced humanoid robots to their workforce, including Tesla which has a number of its Optimus bots carrying out tasks at its factories, as well as BMW, which trialed the use of ‘Figure 02’ robots from the US-based company, Figure.
UBTech has previously partnered with FAW-Volkswagen to create a factory run by humanoid robots.
Now, Foxconn is set to be the latest company to invest in bots after signing a ‘comprehensive long-term partnership’ with China-based UBTech.
The Walker S1 bots have completed two months of logistics training at Foxconn’s Shenzhen Longhua facility.
The robots have been trained to handle numerous tasks required for manufacturing across multiple industries including computers, communication, and consumer electronics – otherwise known as 3C production.
“For car manufacturing, there [are] thousands of tasks on our list,” UBTech chief brand officer Michael Tam told South China Morning Post.
“In areas like 3C production, [these are] totally new skills for humanoid robots to learn.”
The Walker S1 robot was launched last year
UBTech launched its Walker S1 robot in October 2024.
The bipedal robot is 1.72 meters (5.6ft) tall and weighs 76kg (167lbs) – it can already perform tasks such as lifting, sorting parts, and assembling components, which will likely come in useful when building iPhones.
Through the company’s new partnership with Foxconn, UBTech also wants to test the feasibility of using the Walkers S1 bots for tasks that impact human workers’ health such as moving, sorting, and quality inspection.
The robot-maker went on to say the exclusive partnership will ‘accelerate the wider application of humanoid robots in smart manufacturing’ while also helping to ‘rapidly reduce the cost of production by leveraging Foxconn’s supply chain advantages’.
So we could be seeing more robots in more roles in the not-too-distant future.
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