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 is spread across the Las Vegas Convention Center, the city’s largest exhibition venue, and into nearby hotels.
China has long had a presence at CES, but this year it showed up in a bigger way. Chinese exhibitors accounted for almost a quarter of all companies at the show, and in areas such as AI hardware and robotics, China’s presence felt particularly effective. On the floor, I saw a lot of Chinese industry attendees wandering around, as well as a notable number of Chinese VCs. Many experienced CES attendees told me that this is the first post-COVID CES where China was present in a way that you couldn’t miss. Last year too, there may have been a similar trend, but many Chinese attendees were reportedly refused visas. Now AI has become the universal excuse and reason to travel.
As expected, AI was the biggest topic this year, seen on the wall of every booth. This is the biggest thing everyone is talking about and it’s a very confusing marketing gimmick. “We added AI” has been applied to everything from the reasonable (PCs, phones, TVs, security systems) to the insane (slippers, hair dryers, bed frames).
Consumer AI gadgets still seem nascent and of very uneven quality. The most common categories are educational tools and emotional support toys – which, as I recently wrote, are very popular in China. Some memorable ones: Luca AI creates a robotic panda that walks around and keeps a watchful eye on your child. Fuzozo, a bloated key chain-sized AI robot, is basically a digital pet in physical form. It comes with an inherent personality and reacts to how you interact with it. The companies selling these just hope you don’t think too much about the privacy implications.
01.VC investor Ian Goh told me that China’s manufacturing advantage gives it a unique edge in AI consumer electronics, because many Western companies feel they can’t fight and win in the hardware field.
Another area where Chinese companies seem to be on top is home electronics. The products they make are becoming impressively sophisticated. Home robots, 360 cameras, security systems, drones, lawn-mowers, pool heat pumps… did you know that two Chinese brands are basically dominating the home cleaning robot market in the US and eating Dyson and the Sharks’ lunch? Did you know that almost all the suburban yard technology you can buy in the West comes from Shenzhen, even though that whole backyard-obsessed lifestyle barely exists in China? This stuff is so smooth that unless you look closely, you wouldn’t recognize it as sugar. The old “cheap and repetitive” stereotype doesn’t explain what I saw. I walked away from CES feeling like I needed a major home appliance upgrade.
Of course, devices are a secure, mature market. On a more experiential front, humanoid robots were a huge magnet for crowds, and Chinese companies put in a great show. Each robot seemed to be dancing in styles ranging from Michael Jackson to K-pop to lion dance, some even doing back flips. Hangzhou-based Unitri has also set up a boxing ring where people can “challenge” its robots. The robot fighters were about half the size of an adult human and matches often ended in robot knockouts, but that’s not really the point. What Unitri was really showing off was the stability and balance of its robots: they were pushed, wobbled across the ring, and stood upright, recovering in mid-motion. In addition to such flexible dynamic activities, there were also impressive displays of dexterity: robots could be seen folding paper pinwheels, washing clothes, 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 customized for a specific task on the show floor. I tried folding a t-shirt after turning the garment around, and it got tangled very quickly.
