Chinese humanoid robot maker Agibot plans to launch mass production in Serbia in 2026 or 2027, said William Shi, the company's director for Europe, according to Seenews. Together with its strategic partner, Hong Kong-listed auto parts maker Minth Holdings Limited, Agibot will initially produce between 1,000 and 2,000 humanoid robots in Serbia, Shi said Monday following a product demonstration in Belgrade, as seen in a video posted by local news agency Blic.
Although launched just three years ago, Agibot has become the world's largest manufacturer of humanoid robots in quantitative terms, according to Shi. Last year, Agibot manufactured 5,000 robots, representing a market share of nearly 40%, he said.
Shi explained that manufacturing robots has two aspects - hardware and software, and that Agibot will need to find a local company in Serbia to produce artificial intelligence data to train the robots.
During the product demonstration, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said Serbia could become the first country in Europe to produce humanoid robots. The plan is for Serbia to have 50 factories where humans and robots will work together by 2030, with investments in the facilities totaling hundreds of millions of euros, Vucic said, as seen in a video posted by public broadcaster RTS.
Agibot was founded in 2023 in Shanghai. Its humanoid robots are available in three series - Yuanzheng, Lingxi and Genies.
Minth makes exterior and structural auto parts. It has been present in Serbia since 2018 and has factories in Loznica and Sabac, in the western part of the country, where it employs 3,500 people.
Humanoid robots have applications in a wide range of fields, from industrial automation and logistics to healthcare, personal assistance and education.