Polaris Office Expands Beyond AI to Robots... Launches Industrial Robot Business with UBTECH

On April 8, Polaris Group announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with UBTECH Robotics, a global humanoid robot company, to jointly pursue an AI robot solutions business specialized for industrial sites. Polaris Office will play a central role in this collaboration.

Polaris Group owns a diverse range of manufacturing subsidiaries, including Polaris Sewon, an automotive parts manufacturer; Polaris Uno, a synthetic fiber producer; and Polaris AI Pharma, which produces active pharmaceutical ingredients. These factories generate vast amounts of data, such as work routes, production processes, and equipment operation status. Polaris Office is responsible for building AI systems that analyze this data in real time to enhance production efficiency and reduce waste. A key feature is that this is a custom AI model trained directly in the group's own factories, rather than an off-the-shelf external AI. This validated AI is expected to be expanded into a solutions business for external manufacturing companies in the future.

In the mid- to long-term, the strategy is to integrate this AI into robots. Founded in 2012, UBTECH is a global humanoid robotics company that develops core hardware in-house, from servo motors for robot operation to computer vision and autonomous navigation technologies. It became China’s first listed humanoid robot company when it went public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in 2023, and recently proved its technological capabilities by signing a contract to supply robots to Airbus.

In this partnership, Polaris Office will be responsible for the software domain rather than robot hardware. It will oversee the entire AI system that analyzes the data collected by UBTECH's robots, makes situational judgments, and issues operational instructions. Given that a robot’s performance is largely determined by the software functioning as its brain, this is a central role.

In particular, the goal is to advance on-device AI technology capable of processing data without an internet connection, thereby ensuring both security against communication failures or hacking threats and rapid on-site responsiveness.

The strength of this model lies in the group’s possession of its own testbed. The company can experiment with and improve AI and robots in its own factories without external restrictions, reducing the cost of failure and increasing the learning speed. Once the technology is validated, it is immediately deployed to target external markets.

Additionally, providing an integrated platform of AI software and robot hardware creates a lock-in structure that raises switching costs for client companies. This can expand beyond simple product sales into a business model based on subscription services and operational revenue streams.

A Polaris Group representative stated, "Robot hardware alone cannot deliver sufficient value at industrial sites," and emphasized, "AI software that can quickly and accurately analyze data and make decisions must be combined." The representative added, "By applying Polaris Office's AI data processing capabilities to the manufacturing environment, we aim to evolve into an intelligent platform company that enhances industrial productivity."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.