CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is the world’s largest tech show, where companies launch new gadgets and announce new developments, and it takes place every January. This year, it attracted more than 148,000 attendees and more than 4,100 exhibitors. It expands into the city’s largest exhibition space, the Las Vegas Convention Center, and into adjacent hotels.
China has long had a presence at CES, but this year it showed in a big way. Chinese exhibitors accounted for nearly a quarter of all companies at the show, and in pockets like AI hardware and robotics, China’s presence felt particularly dominant. On the floor, I saw a lot of Chinese industry participants walking around, and a significant number of Chinese VCs. Several veteran CES attendees told me that this is the first post-CES where China was present in a way that you can’t miss. This may have been the trend last year as well, but many Chinese participants reportedly ran into visa denials. AI has now become the universal excuse and reason to travel.
As expected, AI was the biggest topic this year, seen on every booth wall. It’s both the biggest thing everyone’s talking about and a deeply confusing marketing ploy. “We added” everything from the reasonable (PCs, phones, TVs, security systems) to the derogatory (slippers, hair dryers, bed frames) has been slapped on.
Consumer AI gadgets still feel rudimentary and of very uneven quality. The most common categories are educational tools and emotional support toys — which, as I recently wrote, are all the rage in China. Some are memorable: Luca Ai creates a robotic panda that watches over your baby and watches over you. Fuzuzo, a fast keychain-sized AI robot, is essentially a digital pet in physical form. It comes with a built-in personality and reacts to how you treat it. These companies just hope you don’t think too hard about the privacy implications.
Ian Goh, an investor at 01.VC, told me that China’s manufacturing advance gives it a unique edge in AI consumer electronics, as many Western companies feel they can’t simply fight and win in the hardware arena.
Another area where Chinese companies seem to be at the head of the pack is home electronics. The products they make are becoming impressively sophisticated. Home robots, 360 cams, security systems, drones, lawn mowers, pool heat pumps… Did you know that two Chinese brands are basically dominating the market for home cleaning robots in the US and eating Dyson and Shark’s lunch? Did you know that almost all suburban yard tech you can buy in the West comes from Shenzhen, even though this backyard lifestyle barely exists in China? This stuff is so sleek you won’t mistake it for sugar until you look for it. The old “cheap and repetitive” stereotype doesn’t describe what I’ve seen. I’ve been realizing since CES that I need a major home appliance upgrade.
Of course, appliances are a safe, mature market. On the more experimental front, humanoid robots were a huge magnet for the crowd, and Chinese companies put on a great show. In styles from Michael Jackson to K-pop to the lion dance, every robot was seen dancing, some even doing flips. Hangzhou-based Unitary even set up a boxing ring where people could “challenge” its robots. The robot fighters were about half the size of an adult human and the matches often ended in robot knockouts, but that’s not really the point. What Unity was really showing off was the stability and balance of its robots: they stumbled into the ring, recovering mid-motion, and stayed upright. Beyond flexing such dynamic movements, there were also impressive displays of skill: the robot could be seen folding paper pinwheels, doing laundry, playing the piano, and even creating latte art.
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However, most of these robots, even good ones, are one-trick ponies. They are optimal for a particular job on the show floor. I tried to make a t-shirt when I flipped the dress around, and it got tangled pretty quickly.