Nio is validating the first humanoid robot powered by Huawei's HarmonyOS at its factory, which uses Huawei's Pangu large model, according to local media.

Nio (NYSE: NIO) appears to be ramping up its efforts in exploring how humanoid robots could be used in its vehicle assembly plants.

The first humanoid robot equipped with Huawei's HarmonyOS operating system, Kuavo, is being tested and validated at factories of Nio and Jiangsu Hengtong Group, local media outlet China Star Market said in a report today.

Huawei's "Pangu large model + Kuavo humanoid robot" will be used in both industrial and family scenarios, and these efforts are moving forward in tandem, according to the brief report.

Kuavo, one of the products of local humanoid robotics maker Leju Robotics, made its appearance at Huawei's HDC 2024 developer conference on June 21.

Huawei managing director and Huawei Cloud CEO Zhang Pingan gave a high-five to Kuavo at that event, showing the audience the potential of the Kuavo humanoid robot in industrial and family scenarios when equipped with the Pangu large model.

Nio is one of the few car companies that is exploring the use of humanoid robots in vehicle assembly plants.

The company's vehicles are built at its F1 and F2 plants in Hefei, in eastern China's Anhui province, which were originally the assets of its automotive production partner, Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group, but were acquired by the company late last year.

Both plants have highly automated production lines, and CnEVPost visited the F1 plant in December 2020 and the F2 plant at NeoPark in Hefei in November 2023.

On February 22, Hong Kong-listed humanoid robotics maker UBTech Robotics (HKG: 9880) shared a video on Weibo showing its Walker S robot working on an assembly line at a factory in Nio.

That's the first time Walker S has had real-world training at a new energy vehicle (NEV) factory, UBTech said at the time.

During the training, the Walker S utilized its real-time image acquisition and transmission capabilities to participate in quality inspections of door locks, seat belts, headlight covers, and was able to affix vehicle logos, according to the video.

Nio assembled a humanoid robot "squad" in 2023, Yi Peng, the EV maker's head of humanoid robots for intellectual engineering, said at the China Humanoid Robot Ecology Conference 2024 in Shanghai in April.

Nio had made two main attempts at humanoid robotics, according to Yi:

Fixing humanoid robotic arms in tight spaces and multitasking with 5G and vision algorithms.

Using humanoid robots in some quality control processes.

Nio testing use of humanoid robots on factory production line