When the global humanoid robot industry breaks through the critical point of mass production of one million units, the industrial application of titanium alloy is becoming the core indicator to measure the competitiveness of technology. In December 2024, China's "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots" listed "titanium alloy precision forming technology" as one of the top ten key projects for the first time, and clearly required that the cost of 3D printed titanium joints be reduced by 50% by 2027. According to the statistics of the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association, in the first quarter of 2025, the domestic orders for titanium alloys for robots surged by 217% year-on-year, and the monthly production capacity exceeded 80 tons, an increase of 3 times compared with the same period in 2023. From aerospace to bionic joints, this "space metal" is opening up a second battlefield in the field of ground robotics.

Titanium alloys are only 60% denser than steel, but close to high-strength steel, and have excellent corrosion resistance and biocompatibility. In humanoid robots, their applications have penetrated into three core scenarios:

Bionic joint system: The hip and knee joints of Tesla Optimus Gen3 are made of Ti-6Al-4V alloy gear sets, combined with 3D printed hollow structures, which reduce the weight of individual joint components by 40% and increase the fatigue life to 3 times that of traditional stainless steel. The medical-grade titanium alloy developed by the domestic company Western Superconductor (688122) has passed the 2 million cycle test of UBTECH Walker X, and is scheduled to be mass-produced in Q2 of 2025.

Load-bearing frame structure: The spine support frame of the Boston Dynamics Atlas V11 adopts a mesh titanium alloy frame, which increases the overall rigidity by 18% while maintaining a load capacity of 25kg. The gradient porous titanium alloy material jointly developed by Baoti Co., Ltd. (600456) and Harbin Institute of Technology can increase the energy absorption efficiency by 32%, and has entered the prototype verification stage of Zhiyuan robot.

Precision sensing components: The tactile sensor shell of Festo Bionic Hand in Germany is encapsulated with 0.1mm thick titanium foil, which reduces the thickness by 30% compared with the aluminum alloy solution on the premise of ensuring the electromagnetic shielding performance. The titanium-based flexible pressure sensor array developed by the Shenyang Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, with a resolution of 5μm, has been applied to the fingertip haptic module of Xiaomi CyberOne.

Policy-driven technology and capacity expansion

In July 2024, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the "Guiding Opinions on the Innovation and Development of Humanoid Robots", which clearly included "high-strength and lightweight metal material preparation technology" in the eight key projects, and planned to build 3-5 national titanium alloy humanoid robot application innovation centers by 2027. At the local level, Shaanxi Province has set up a special fund of 2 billion yuan to support the development of titanium alloy 3D printing, superplastic forming and other processes relying on the "China Titanium Valley" industrial cluster in Baoji.

Since Q3 of 2024, Chujiang New Materials (002171) has invested 850 million yuan to build an aerospace-grade titanium alloy production line, with a planned annual output of 300 tons of high-precision titanium alloy wires.

The restructuring of supply and demand has given rise to a tens of billions of incremental markets

According to Market Research Future's January 2025 report, the global titanium alloy market for humanoid robots will surge from 1.28 billion yuan in 2024 to 18.7 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 49.3%. Core drivers include:

Jump in the amount of single machine: Taking Tesla Optimus as an example, the amount of titanium alloy used in the car has increased from 1.2kg in Gen2 to 4.5kg in Gen3, and the proportion of material cost in the whole machine has increased from 7% to 19%.

Breakthrough in process cost reduction: The electron beam fuse deposition technology developed by Xi'an BLT (688333) has increased the printing efficiency of titanium alloy components by 400% and reduced the unit energy consumption by 65%, driving the price of 3D printed titanium parts from 3,500 yuan/kg in 2023 to 1,800 yuan/kg expected in 2025.

Perfect recycling system: The "Titanium Alloy Scrap Recycling Standard for Humanoid Robots" led by the China Nonferrous Metals Industry Association will be implemented in December 2024, and it is expected that by 2026, the proportion of recycled titanium in the field of robotics will reach 30%, further reducing the cost of raw materials.

Summary

Despite the broad prospects, the large-scale application of titanium alloys still faces two major challenges: the titanium-aluminum laminate developed by Toray Corporation of Japan has achieved 20% lighter performance than traditional titanium alloys, and is applying for patents in many countries; QuesTek Innovations of the United States has designed a vanadium-free titanium alloy through machine learning, which reduces the risk of biological toxicity by 90% while maintaining strength, which may form a technical barrier to the medical assistive robot market.

Domestic enterprises need to accelerate breakthroughs in material modification and joining processes (such as titanium/carbon fiber heterogeneous material welding) to avoid falling into the dilemma of "high-end overcapacity and insufficient cutting-edge supply".

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