One of the surprising side stories of 2020s AI has been the triumph of Open Source. It has beaten or equalled the privately funded efforts that investors have poured hundreds of billions of dollars into. Is Open-Source about to triumph again in robotics?
Unitree's robot hardware is on par with any competitor's; their primary remaining challenge is software. Closed-development companies like Boston Dynamics can still claim a lead there - for now.
But how long will that last?
Unitree has targeted open-source developers around the world, and it's paying off. Here's the latest example of many. Irony of ironies - it's Americans using Apple tech, doing the work to build Unitree as the world's leading robotics company.
Humanoid Everyday: A Comprehensive Robotic Dataset for Open-World Humanoid Manipulation