Highlights from WAIC 2021: Huawei's smart city, the Walker X helper robot and self-driving cars

The World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC) 2021 was held from July 7 to 10 at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Center. 

As part of the event, Huawei presented technical documentation and its vision of a "smart city". The system will be able to recognize and process information, as well as make informed decisions to improve living conditions.

To create the city's "nervous system," the company used the latest information and communication technologies that combine cloud computing, big data and artificial intelligence. The latter analyzes the situation and provides a real-time report.

Huawei Cloud's platform is already working on building "smart" infrastructure in ten localities across China, including Shanghai.

UBTECH Robotics unveiled a new version of Walker X, the largest commercially available humanoid robot in China. It climbs stairs and rough terrain, keeps its balance on one leg, gives massages, plays chess and navigates autonomously.

Walker X is a home assistant with voice interaction. The main advantages of the new version are its many perception systems, including inertial, vision and hearing. The robot's maximum speed is 3 km/h.

It recognizes faces, gestures and objects around it. Walker X also autonomously controls refrigerators, coffee machines, vacuum cleaners and other household appliances, serves tea and imitates emotions.

Within three years, Baidu will launch self-driving cars in 30 Chinese cities. One of the vehicles will be the Apollo Moon with 5G support, priced at $74,000, which will serve as the basis for a new taxi service.

WAIC 2021 also featured the SenseAuto AR-Robobus, an autonomous minibus with augmented reality, equipped with AR screens instead of windows and capable of independently moving and stopping in designated zones.

Visitors were also shown barista robots, massage robots, robotic dogs and educational robots for children.