UBTECH Robotics announced on August 31 that Hong Kong’s first service robot deployed in a real open environment has officially started operating. UBTECH’s AlphaBot 2 (Aibao) robot has joined a Lan Kwai Fong bar as a “bartender,” providing cocktail-making and interactive services for customers.
The company said this is not only the world’s first productivity-oriented general-purpose robot to work at a leading international nightlife destination, but also marks UBTECH’s successful completion of the full end-to-end process for Chinese embodied-intelligence products going overseas: from hardware export, customs clearance, and compliance to obtaining Hong Kong’s local beverage sales qualifications and establishing a paid service model. Aibao has achieved lawful, compliant, sustainable routine operation in a real commercial environment.
The robot is equipped with NeuroVLA, an original brain-inspired embodied foundation model. It introduces the collaborative mechanism of the human brain’s “cortex, cerebellum, and spinal cord” into the robot control system: the “cortex” handles semantic understanding and task planning, the “cerebellum” handles high-frequency motion coordination and dynamic correction, and the “spinal cord” handles rapid safety responses.
According to the company, the significance of this architecture is not to make the robot “look more human,” but to enable it to continuously perceive, understand, make decisions, and adjust its movements when faced with complex changes in the real world.
Experimental data shows that NeuroVLA can reduce robot motion jitter by more than 75% and complete reflex responses within 20 milliseconds after a collision, with power consumption of only about 0.4 watts. When faced with sudden changes in lighting, people blocking its view, or shaking glasses in the bar, Aibao can adjust its movements immediately and complete its service reliably.