Humanoid robots, a potential solution to Canada’s workforce crisis

Canada is experiencing unprecedented demographic shifts and economic pressures that are reshaping its manufacturing sector. The federal government’s plan to reduce temporary foreign workers, combined with Canada’s record-low fertility rate (1.33 children per woman) and persistent labour shortages, underscores the urgent need for innovation in the food and beverage processing sector. Canada’s population reached a historic high of 40.77 million in 2023, driven largely by temporary immigration. Despite this growth, the manufacturing sector, including food and beverage processing companies, face severe labour shortages. According to a study by Food Processing Skills Canada (FPSC), the Canadian food and beverage manufacturing industry will need at least 142,000 new people between 2023 and 2030. Further, Food and Beverage Canada found that manufacturers are typically understaffed by 25 per cent. With more than 8,200 processors in Canada, FPSC estimates that losses from job vacancies could total up to $9.3 million in net revenue per day or $3.4 billion per year. This is not a sustainable situation for the processing industry. Companies must find new ways to improve productivity on plant floors as traditional automation technologies have proven inadequate and businesses struggle to find workers for mundane and dangerous tasks. Ben Reed, CMO at Sanctuary AI (at the time of writing this article; Reed has since quit Sanctuary AI), which is on a mission to create general-purpose robots with human-like intelligence, highlighted the limitations of current technologies. “All of the present automation in manufacturing, called special purpose, is designed for one or a couple of specific things. The challenge in F&B manufacturing is that there are still things that require people to create the final product, and such roles can’t be automated with traditional special-purpose automation technologies,” he explained. Humanoid robots This is where humanoid robots, powered by artificial intelligence (AI) control systems, can play a disruptive role. “The approach should be to create a general-purpose robot that can do lots of different things because that’s what people essentially are in the labour force,” Reed said. Sanctuary AI believes two key things—dexterous human-like hands and an AI control system needed to drive the robot—enable this possibility. Dexterous human-like hands are important because “98.8 per cent of all work requires dexterous manipulation.” A general-purpose robot, such as Sanctuary AI’s Phoenix, can adapt to various tasks (e.g. bottling soda one day and wrapping a food product the next) due to its ‘human-like adaptability’. Carbon, Sanctuary AI’s artificial intelligence-enabled control system allows Phoenix to learn and understand the different tasks it’s required to perform. Sanctuary AI has launched various iterations of its Phoenix robot, but none are ready to be deployed in a factory setting. In 2023, it ran a week-long pilot test at a Mark’s retail store in Langley, B.C. Phoenix 7.0 was asked to perform 110 retail-related tasks, such as picking and packing merchandise, cleaning, tagging, labelling, and folding. Sanctuary is using the lessons learned during the pilot test to develop Phoenix 8.0. Switzerland-based Mimic has developed an AI-driven collaborative robotic hand. It raised US$2.5 million in a pre-seed funding round earlier this year. According to Mimic, the hand is designed to handle environments and tools made for humans and has been engineered to handle tough work conditions as well as fragile objects. It is also not ready for commercial deployment. Stephan-Daniel Gravert, co-founder of Mimic, said, “Most use cases are stationary and do not require a full humanoid robot with legs. That’s why we focus on data collection and hardware ingenuity on a universal robotic hand that is compatible with off-the-shelf industrial robotic arms for positioning.”

Market potential According to the Goldman Sachs report, Humanoid robot: The AI accelerant, which was released in February 2024, the global market for humanoid robots could reach US$38 billion by 2035 due to rapid development. Models can now train themselves instead of requiring human engineers to code everything. This has sped up robotic development, allowing these devices to do more tasks and adapt to new situations more quickly, said the report. Further, the hardware components required to make the robots, such as high-precision gears and actuators, cost less now, per the report. According to the Goldman Sachs report, the manufacturing cost of humanoid robots has declined from an estimated US$50,000 (lower-end models) and US$250,000 (high-end versions) per unit last year to US$30,000 and US$150,000 now. The report’s authors optimistically estimate the shipment of over 250,000 humanoid robots to factories across the world in 2030. However, the report is cautious about general-purpose robots. While, in theory, employing general-purpose robots can address a nearly infinite range of real-world problems, they’re not widely used because of the limited availability of training data for robots. Another challenge is to acquire enough hardware components to mass produce humanoid robots. As highlighted in the Goldman Sachs report, “some components need high-precision grinding machines that are limited in number, which makes it difficult to ramp up production. Costs for some components are still high because of limited industrial capacity or long manufacturing cycle times.” Additionally, the report highlighted “bottlenecks in the development of AI and software for robot manipulation (such as grasping objects) and interaction (taking voice commands from a person without training).”

Possible solution Nevertheless, the Goldman Sachs report envisions that general-purpose humanoid robots will become the next ‘must-have’ device in manufacturing facilities, if innovation continues to unfold rapidly and the demand for these solutions rises. Automotive parts company Magna has invested in Sanctuary AI. According to a partnership agreement between the two companies, Magna will financially support Sanctuary AI’s development of general-purpose AI robots for deployment in Magna’s manufacturing plants. Sanctuary will have access to Magna’s product portfolio, engineering, and manufacturing capabilities to assess and improve the cost of manufacturing its robots as well as make it scalable. “Robots like Phoenix are designed to be able to function in an environment where a person would typically function” said Reed. “They have two arms, two hands, 10 fingers, a head, and they’re similar in size, height, shape, etc., to a person.” This human-like form factor is supposed to facilitate easier integration with existing systems. As Reed pointed out, “The great thing about a general-purpose technology is that it isn’t going to just be the large companies that are going to be able to leverage this technology. The system that we’ve produced is intended to be general purpose, enabling a much smaller company to be able to have this technology depending on what they’re doing.” Safety As with any emerging technology, the adoption of humanoid robots in manufacturing brings up concerns about safety and regulation. However, the proponents and developers are confident of integrating all required safety standards into the design of humanoids. Reed explained that this technology can address areas of operations that traditional automation has not been able to help with, thereby ‘closing that gap’. As mentioned earlier, Mimic robots are designed to fit into existing workflows. Co-founder Stefan Weirich said, “Conventional automation leaves a huge gap of tedious, low-to-medium volume manual labour tasks that often fall under the table because they are too complex or not economical to automate … Taking AI-driven robotic manipulation to the next level, we can now address these challenges.” In an era of declining birth rates and labour issues, robotics is emerging as a potential workforce solution.