For stock investors, checking authoritative, professional, timely and comprehensive analyst research reports helps uncover potential thematic opportunities. (Source: Huaxia Times) A reporter from chinatimes.net.cn filed this report from Zhuhai.
"Hello, welcome to Hengqin Chimelong Park! Which attraction would you like to experience next? I can give you a detailed introduction." On September 24, inside the embodied intelligence themed zone at Hengqin Chimelong Spaceship Park, a guide robot proactively greeted this reporter. It introduced the features and ways to play at each attraction based on the park's setting, and when follow-up questions were asked, it responded to each one. The whole process was quite smooth. This service-minded robot comes from AgiBot.
On that day, the world's first large-scale embodied intelligence themed park, jointly created by AgiBot and Chimelong Group, opened at Hengqin Chimelong Spaceship Park. More than 300 robots from AgiBot's full lineup began regular duty across the park, and AgiBot's 20,000th embodied intelligence robot, the A3 Ultra, was officially delivered to Chimelong Group.
"We have signed a strategic cooperation agreement for the next 10 years," Wang Chuang, AgiBot partner, senior vice president and president of the general business unit, told media including the Huaxia Times reporter.
A new attempt in tech-driven cultural tourism
On the opening day, this reporter saw "robot employees" everywhere in the various exhibition areas: some were giving science popularization explanations to children, some were helping visitors check destinations and plan routes, some were selling snacks and drinks, some were playing table tennis with visitors, and others were competing with children in a bean-picking game. Families with children have always been one of the main audiences of Hengqin Chimelong Spaceship Park, and with the addition of robots, the children's interest was clearly stirred up, as they gathered around the robots and watched with great focus.
The intelligent theme park has set up more than 100 interactive experience points, covering seven core scenarios including robot entertainment and commercial performances, science popularization and study tours, guide and shopping services, service retail stations, intelligent companion tours, hotel services and sports competitions. Human-robot interaction mainly relies on AgiBot's self-developed Silicon Light Motion Language WITA large model. The robots can combine the model's understanding and generation capabilities with visual perception, voice interaction and motion execution, perceive the on-site environment, understand visitor intentions, and further complete interaction and service.
Jiang Minling, vice president of Chimelong Group and general manager of Hengqin Chimelong Resort, said that as an international tourism resort, Hengqin Chimelong receives guests from around the world, with overseas growth approaching 50% in the past year. Facing tourists from different countries, it is very difficult to rely only on staff for interaction, but with the help of AI and intelligent voice algorithms, robots can quickly identify the language spoken by visitors and then rapidly convey relevant information to them.
"The cooperation between AgiBot and Chimelong can be seen as a new attempt in a B2B2C commercialization layout. From the perspective of commercial breakthrough, this model differs from the industry's common single-point displays. Instead, through a full-chain IP process, it drives progress from the production end toward the user end and scenario end, and can be regarded as a meaningful exploration," Zhang Yi, CEO and chief analyst of iiMedia Research, told this reporter. Hengqin Chimelong Spaceship Park is a very large-scale theme amusement park, and by seizing the title of "large-scale embodied intelligence theme park," AgiBot should gain considerable effectiveness in promotional demonstration and brand positioning.
From a longer-term perspective, Zhang Yi predicted that the combination of cultural tourism and embodied intelligence is bound to be a future development trend. The cultural tourism industry needs differentiated experiences for upgrading, and embodied intelligence can indeed upgrade "sightseeing check-ins" into "deep immersion," which also aligns with the policy orientation of "AI plus consumption." "If this project can run successfully, it will create a demonstration effect for accelerating the widespread application of embodied intelligence in elderly care, hotels, retail and more public service scenarios."
Chimelong Group's projects extend far beyond Hengqin Chimelong Spaceship Park. Jiang Minling revealed that the company is already envisioning application scenarios for robots in Chimelong's other parks. "For example, at Chimelong Ocean Kingdom, a robot formation could be added to the grand parade scene, making the business more diverse. In Guangzhou Chimelong's circus, robots could also fly through the air and jump up and down, giving special robots skills that only human extreme performers possess."
From novelty to lasting freshness year after year
Looking globally, many theme parks have only scattered robot display points, mostly remaining at short-term exhibitions and pilot experiences, unable to achieve all-weather regular operations. The cooperation between AgiBot and Chimelong has clearly broken through industry limitations.
However, applying robots on such a large scale is not easy. Among the challenges, "the most important is naturally the safety red line. Under high visitor flow, could 300 robots lose control or collide, creating physical risks? This involves emergency mechanisms and responsibility definition," Zhang Yi said.
Regarding safety guarantees, Wang Chuang introduced that several layers of safety systems have been deployed on the robots. The first layer is the robot's safety perception. When a robot swings its arm for explanation, if someone approaches, its arm will stop immediately. At present, the success rate of this function is already relatively high. In the initial deployment stage, dedicated staff will also watch nearby, just as when many amusement facilities first launch, and data will continue to be collected for optimization. Another layer is compliant control. For example, the arm of the Expedition A3 can be pulled freely, and the force when it hits something is very small.
However, although the combination of robots and cultural tourism currently appears fresh and interesting, since the goal is regular deployment, if after half a year or a year the robots remain at relatively fixed interaction modes such as greeting, guiding, explaining and performing, lacking continuously updated content and gameplay, it will be difficult to retain visitors over the long term. Therefore, how to turn robots from "a temporary novelty" into "a reason to return often" is the test this model must face next.
"Real scenarios can drive research and development capabilities into actual deployment and withstand regular testing. We believe that cooperation with Chimelong has at least greatly improved interaction capabilities. With rapid iteration and data utilization, we can do a little better every day in various scenarios ahead. We will also conduct deep research and development together with Chimelong. Only through this model can it truly become the regular deployment imagined," Xiong Yan, AgiBot partner, co-president, president of the central R&D department and president of the interaction business system, told this reporter.
Wang Chuang also stated that AgiBot and Chimelong Group will continue to develop more fun and more interactive games, so that visitors truly like the place more because of the robots' presence. As robots iterate rapidly, every three months or half a year, visitors may be willing to come again, thereby increasing stickiness and repurchase rates.
Daring to confirm a 10-year cooperation just after it has begun shows that AgiBot and Chimelong Group are optimistic about the long term for cooperation between embodied intelligence and cultural tourism projects. To support subsequent development, on that day AgiBot and Chimelong Group also jointly established the "Chimelong x AgiBot Embodied Intelligence Cultural Tourism Joint Research Institute," and the "world's first large-scale 5G-A embodied intelligence innovative application in cultural tourism scenarios," jointly researched by AgiBot, Chimelong Group and China Mobile, was also officially released.