Interview with David Reger, CEO of Neura Robotics on the topic of humanoid robots

Mr. Reger, the topic of humanoid robots is currently experiencing impressive momentum. The first pilot projects with humanoids are already underway at leading car manufacturers. Is the triumphal march of humanoids imminent and in which industries do you see the first series applications and in what timeframe?

If you look at the public hype in the USA and Asia and the investment sums that are flowing into humanoid robotics, then a triumphal march is not imminent, but has already begun. Rarely have there been so many big players who are convinced of one thing at the same time. If you are asking about series applications and market-ready products: it will probably be a few years yet, but cognitive robotics, as a pioneer of humanoids so to speak, will already be in widespread use. After all, cognitive abilities are definitely the most important prerequisite for safe and universally deployable humanoids. And here again, the automotive manufacturers and suppliers will probably be the pioneers and already are. However, due to the new possibilities and ease of operation, we will soon see cognitive robots in the service sector and even in the home.

NEURA Robotics presented its own humanoid, the 4NE-1, at the last automatica. What technological improvements will this humanoid have next year and for which priority tasks do you want to qualify it?

I'm reluctant to make specific statements because we don't want to limit ourselves. With MAiRA—the world's first cognitive robot from our company—it turned out that we were much faster and surprised everyone. Maybe we'll just let ourselves be surprised this time too, right? In any case, 4NE 1 will be able to do more than everyone expects.

China has announced its intention to become the world market leader in the field of humanoid robots in the next few years. Around five percent of the workforce will then be humanoids, which would be around 35 million. How realistic do you think such scenarios are and can you imagine in general (i.e. also in this country) that the shortage of skilled workers can be alleviated by humanoids?

China, but also the USA, are countries that set themselves concrete economic goals and develop visions as economies. I don't think these figures are about whether it will ultimately take four, five or six years and whether 20, 30 or 40 million workers will be humanoid robots. The important thing is to convey the dimension of the topic for the future of the global economy. And I hope that we here in Germany will finally wake up, take the matter seriously and bring this vision to life. Because of course you're right—it looks like the shortage of skilled workers in many areas can only be overcome by humanoid robots. This will be particularly evident in so-called “semi-structured environments”, in which people frequently perform repetitive and simple tasks.