Shen Wan Hongyuan: The robot cooling market is expected to reach 18 billion by 2030

The Zhitong Finance App learned that Shen Wan Hongyuan released a research report saying that the cooling of humanoid robots is a key part of determining whether physical intelligence can perform stably. There are multiple pain points such as limited joint space, continuous high motor load, and excessive fingertip thermal density compared to AI chips. The robot's heat mainly comes from the three core modules of the joint actuator (accounting for 50%-60%), the computing power unit (about 20%), and the power system (12%-15%). The multi-dimensional heat source is highly coupled. The bank expects that with the acceleration of industrialization, the global active cooling market for puppets and four-legged robots will be about 18 billion yuan in 2030, and there is plenty of room for racetrack growth.

Shen Wan Hongyuan's main views are as follows:

The cooling position has jumped, and the risk of failure is linked to fatal

Unlike traditional cooling scenarios, humanoid robots have pain points such as limited joint space, continuous high motor load, and excessive fingertip heat density. They need to be equipped with an intelligent temperature control system, which is a multi-dimensional system-level problem. Once cooling fails, performance will trigger active frequency reduction, leading to a decrease in accuracy and rhythm; in terms of safety, overheating may shut down or even cause a short circuit fire. The cooling capacity directly determines whether physical intelligence can perform stably and for a long time.

Heat sources are highly coupled, and core modules are distributed centrally

The heat of humanoid robots mainly comes from three core modules. Among them, the joint actuator is the core heat source, and the equipment is equipped with 20-50 actuators, including multiple sub-heat sources such as motors and drivers, contributing 50%-60% of the total machine's heat; next, the computing power unit, core chips such as SoC and GPU consume 50-300W instantaneous power when working under high load, and the heat flow density is extremely high, accounting for about 20%; various types of power systems generate 12%-15% heat loss, and the superposition of multiple heat sources greatly increases the difficulty of heat dissipation control.

Technology continues to iterate, and market space is steadily expanding

Industry cooling solutions have evolved from traditional passive heat dissipation to iteratively form diverse routes such as air cooling, liquid cooling, and bionic technology. Among them, air cooling technology is the most mature and has the widest range of applications; liquid cooling has outstanding advantages in heat dissipation efficiency. As the power consumption of the entire robot machine continues to increase, the penetration rate of the liquid cooling solution industry is expected to continue to rise. As the industrialization process of puppets and four-legged robots accelerates, shipments of complete machines are increasing and prices are falling steadily, continuing to drive the release of demand for thermal management. The bank expects the global active cooling market for puppets and four-legged robots to be about 18 billion yuan in 2030, and there is plenty of room for racetrack growth.

Risk Alerts

Downstream demand implementation falls short of expectations; risk of technology iteration and verification; risk of high-end materials supply chain; risk of slow industry scaling.