ARK Invest founder Cathie Wood is betting that Tesla (TSLA) will emerge as the global leader in robotics, pushing ahead of rivals in China as humanoid automation becomes one of the largest industries of the century.
In an interview on The Master Investor Podcast with Wilfred Frost, Wood says she’s looking at Tesla’s strategy in electric vehicles and autonomy as the next leg of growth.
According to Wood, Tesla’s robo-taxi program gives the company a massive edge as it stands at the intersection of multiple technologies.
“Well, Tesla is going to be the largest robotics manufacturer. Now, why are we saying that? Tesla already, with robo-taxis, is in the robotics space. So, autonomous vehicles are robots. They will be electric, and they will be powered by AI.
That’s a robo-taxi. That is also a humanoid robot. So it’s already an expert at the convergence among these technologies in a way that very few are. Elon [Musk] says he believes that Tesla will be number one globally in humanoid robots. That’s going to be a $26 trillion market. We agree with him.”
Looking at China, Wood says the country is rapidly deploying robots to support its aging population. Despite the country’s urgency to develop robotics due to its demographics, Wood believes that Tesla will be second to none.
“But [Musk] also says the next nine players are in China. We don’t know if that’s completely true…. But we are amazed at how quickly China is moving. And it has such a big demographic problem that it is imperative that it moves in this way.
So we think Tesla will be number one.”
Beyond Tesla’s Chinese rivals, Wood points to only one other serious contender in robotics — a sign, she says, of how rare standalone robotics firms have become.
“Another player is Teradyne. It bought a European company, a Danish company called Universal Robots, that’s starting to work with Amazon now. So you’re right, there aren’t that many pure-play robotics manufacturers.
We saw this in 3D printing and automation. The industrial sector tends to gobble those companies up or compete against them. And so maybe that’s why this is happening this way.”
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