51World Unveils Data Collection Suite to Advance Embodied AI Development

The race to develop intelligent humanoid robots faces a major roadblock in a severe shortage of high-quality training data, but Beijing-based tech company 51World believes it has the tools to break the bottleneck.

Best known for its digital twin and simulation technology, 51 World on Tuesday unveiled a new suite of data-collection devices and platforms designed to help train embodied AI systems – artificial intelligence models that help machines perceive, reason and interact with the physical world.

The lack of high-precision data was one of the biggest hurdles facing the embodied AI industry as it rushed to build robots that could operate with stability and certainty, said Li Yi, 51World’s founder and CEO, at a launch event in Shenzhen on Tuesday.

The company aims to boost the collection of such data with AperEgo, a headset that has a multi-camera system to capture a panoramic view of the surroundings as well as sensors that synchronise visual, motion and audio inputs with high accuracy. Its hardware suite also includes devices for the wrist and fingers to better understand how hands work.

Worn by a person while performing tasks, the system produces data for analysis through 51World’s AperOS platform, which can screen out invalid data before the data is uploaded for further processing, lowering data storage and computing costs, according to the company.

“The integration of hardware and software would allow us to push precision up to 99 per cent,” Li said. “High precision translates directly to greater accuracy and efficiency. Looking ahead, we are confident we can boost the efficiency of embodied AI across data collection, utilisation, training and generalisation by a large margin.”

China’s humanoid robot market would reach 15 billion yuan (US$2.2 billion) in 2026, and grow by at least 60 per cent in 2027 as mass production ramped up and applications widened, according to a report by research firm TrendForce on Wednesday.