21/08/2026

FRIDAY | AUG 21, 2026

18

BIZ & FINANCE

Robots close to ‘ChatGPT moment’, says Unitree CEO

BIZ & FINANCE South Korea to send its first container ship through Arctic

addition of the vaccine. The trial is ongoing and the companies have not released full results. They will continue to follow volunteers to determine whether the drug extends overall survival. Five-year data from a previous mid-stage trial presented in June showed the vaccine had cut the risk that the cancer would return by half, and reduced the risk that it would spread to new locations by 59% compared with Keytruda alone. In that trial, the addition of an mRNA vaccine also showed no new increase in the rate of serious side effects. “What we saw in the (mid-stage trial) were the kinds of reactions people were having when they got a flu or Covid shot or any other vaccine,“ Hoge said. Dr Elizabeth Buchbinder, a melanoma specialist at the Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute, said doctors treating patients whose cancer has been surgically removed often weigh the benefits of treating with Keytruda against the risk of side effects, especially for patients with only a 20% risk of cancer recurrence. – Reuters SEOUL: South Korea plans its first trial voyage through the Arctic this week as Middle East conflict disrupts global shipping, Seoul’s oceans ministry said yesterday, while environmental groups warn the route could accelerate melting of polar ice. Global shipping has been heavily disrupted by war in the Middle East, sparked by US-Israeli strikes on Iran in late February – prompting shipping companies and governments to explore alternative routes. The voyage follows that of the Chinese container ship Dubai Tower , which left the eastern port city of Ningbo for Europe this month, heading north through the Bering Strait before turning west along Russia’s Arctic coast. The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is only accessible during the time of the year when the ice is melted enough to allow transits without icebreakers. “South Korea’s trial voyage is currently expected to depart on the evening of Aug 22, though the schedule time could change depending on weather conditions, including typhoons,“ a spokesman for the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries told AFP. The container ship will sail to Europe via the Arctic, testing whether a route opened by melting sea ice can be commercially viable. The Arctic route “is bound to become an alternative to Middle Eastern routes,“ South Korea’s vice oceans minister Nam Jae-hon said recently. Busan-based shipping company PanStar Line Dot Com has been selected to operate the trial, using the container vessel Panstar Acro , according to the ministry. “The ship will depart from Busan and sail to Felixstowe in Britain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Gdansk in Poland before returning, with the entire voyage expected to take around 45 days,“ the spokesman said. The usual maritime route between Asia and Europe runs through the Suez Canal, but travelling through the Arctic can cut the journey by around 7,000km and about 10 days, according to the Korea Institute for International Economic Policy.

o Chinese company’s chief exec says industry nearing breakthrough and tipping point to usher in explosive growth BEIJING: The CEO of Chinese humanoid robot unicorn Unitree said yesterday the industry is edging towards a “ChatGPT moment” for robot brains, after the company’s blockbuster Shanghai listing crystallised China’s ambitions to lead the next frontier of AI-powered machines. Shares in China’s best-known humanoid robot maker fell 11% yesterday, a day after soaring nearly sixfold in their market debut, highlighting intense investor enthusiasm for a fledgling sector that enjoys strong backing from Beijing. “We are marching towards a ‘ChatGPT moment’ in embodied intelligence,” said Wang Xingxing, the Hangzhou-based startup’s founder and CEO, at a major robot conference in Beijing. The global AI boom that has reshaped the world economy was sparked in late 2022 by ChatGPT’s breakthrough large language model, a watershed moment that drove mass adoption. No comparable inflection point has yet emerged for world models, the physical AI simulation systems designed to help robots understand and navigate real-world environments. Wang said the industry is nearing a breakthrough where robots can be placed in unfamiliar environments and complete most tasks through simple voice or text instructions. “We hope that in the future, we can see a robot be introduced into an unfamiliar household and it can achieve approximately 80% of tasks successfully through voice or text commands,” he said. “It is an important tipping point for the robot industry to usher in explosive growth.” At the same time, Wang cautioned that a major leap in robot software could arrive within two to three years in an optimistic scenario, or within five to 10 years at the latest. “Relative to the mood around World Robot Conference and Unitree’s spectacular IPO, Wang Xingxing was notably sober about current

Humanoid robots by Unitree Robotics demonstrate kickboxing during the 2026 World Robot Conference, in Beijing. – REUTERSPIX

“lagging behind” in the real-world application of physical AI models. He also said humanoids are not yet capable enough for mass deployment, pointing to limitations in the AI models that power robots’ decision-making and interactions as the industry’s biggest bottleneck. Even so, Wang expects the sector to enter a decade of rapid autonomous evolution of humanoid robots, as the AI boom accelerates and AI language models learn to improve themselves. China delivered over 40,000 humanoids in the first half of this year alone, and accounts for 97% of global shipments of humanoid robots, a Chinese humanoid industry body said in a report yesterday. Beijing is betting that robots can eventually replace human labour in repetitive, low-value and dangerous settings as it faces a shrinking workforce due to demographic decline. While humanoids are gradually being introduced to factory floors and logistics warehouses, they remain less efficient than human workers in most applications. – Reuters “We should be hearing results from multiple studies over the next few years and there’s every reason to hope now, with this news, that many of them will be positive,“ said Dr Robert Vonderheide, director of Penn Medicine’s Abramson Cancer Center and president-elect of the American Association for Cancer Research. Merck and Moderna’s treatment, known as intismeran autogene, involves activating the immune system with up to nine doses of Merck’s immunotherapy drug Keytruda, infused every six weeks, plus up to nine doses of a customised mRNA vaccine that instructs the immune system to attack the patient’s specific cancer cells. When used alone after surgery to reduce the risk that melanoma returns, Keytruda is given every three to six weeks for up to a year. In melanoma patients, Keytruda treatment can result in fatigue, diarrhea, rash and inflammation of joints and muscles, as well as of healthy organs in some cases. The companies said they saw no new side effects with the

capabilities,” said Georg Stieler, head of automation at robotics consultancy Stieler. Unitree is the world’s largest producer of robot dogs and the second-biggest maker of humanoid robots by shipments, according to industry data. It rose to fame with impressively choreographed performances of robots dancing and performing kung-fu, showcased on Chinese television, and is increasingly deploying its machines in real-world industrial settings. Its IPO prospectus shows most customers are universities and research institutions. Wang He, founder of Chinese robotic startup Galbot, expects the sector’s “ChatGPT moment” to arrive by 2028, defining it as the point when robots can perform about 70% to 80% of everyday tasks without specialised training. “With continued accumulation of data and further technological breakthroughs, we expect to reach the ‘ChatGPT moment’ for embodied intelligence by 2028,” he said. Unitree’s Wang said the company’s biggest current investment in terms of capital and manpower is in world models and that it is

Moderna, Merck breakthrough raises hopes for cancer vaccines CHICAGO: Merck and Moderna’s success with a personalised cancer vaccine designed to keep melanoma at bay opens a new avenue of treatment that doctors hope will work against many types of tumours. approaches may change the way we treat cancer more broadly.” The trial result is “a monumental leap forward,“ validating mRNA technology as a cancer treatment, said Dr Julie Gralow, chief medical officer of the American Society of Clinical Oncology. in 2027, with pancreatic trial results to follow in 2031.

Unlike chemotherapy, which kills both healthy and cancerous cells, or immunotherapy, which revs up the immune system, personalised cancer vaccines train the immune system to specifically target mutations found only on a person’s tumour. Merck and Moderna said on Wednesday their vaccine helped prevent the return and spread of disease in a large trial involving more than 1,000 melanoma patients. They had localised tumours that were removed surgically, but had a high risk of recurrence. Moderna expects that thousands of melanoma patients could benefit within the first few years of approval. “It is a big deal for the field in general,“ said Dr Ryan Sullivan, director of the Center for Melanoma at Mass General Brigham Cancer Institute. “With this positive study, there is hope (and likely investment to follow) that these

Beyond melanoma, personalised cancer vaccines are in late-stage development for a host of tumour types. Merck and Moderna have several large trials under way in non-small cell lung cancers that have been surgically removed. They are also studying the combination in mid-stage trials in patients with bladder and kidney cancers as well as in early-stage trials in pancreatic and stomach cancers, with numerous trial results expected in the next year or two, Moderna president Stephen Hoge told Reuters. Roche and BioNTech, whose mRNA technology was used in the Pfizer Covid vaccines, are testing a similar treatment called autogene cevumeran in mid-stage studies in colon and pancreatic cancer patients who have undergone surgery. Results of the colon cancer trial are expected