DJI, a Chinese company based in Shenzhen, is currently the biggest drone manufacturer in the world with a 70 percent market share. It has quite a few great devices in its lineup, including the popular Phantom 4 and the compact Mavic.

But DJI is looking ahead into the future and wants to expand its product line beyond drones. According to the report from Korea Herald, the company believes that robots are its future. It has already shown a robot it’s working on that can shoot plastic balls, detect incoming hits, and uses a special omni-directional wheel system, to a few reporters.

The robot is being used by college teams in the RoboMasters competition, which is hosted annually by DJI. It’s an important event for the company as it reportedly spends around 50 million yuan (around $7 million) every year to make it happen, for the sole purpose of getting ahead in the robot industry with the help of Chinese college students.

Wang Fan, communications director at DJI, said that the company wants to continue doing what it does well. Apparently, it’s thinking of creating a product that will be a combination of a drone and a robot. How exactly it will look like and what it will be able to do, is anyone’s guess right now. Wang has not given any substantial info to go on, so we can assume that the project is still in an early development phase.

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It will be interesting to see what the company can bring to the table in the future. DJI has already achieved a lot of success in the market so far, which it attributes to its devotion to research and development. According to Wang Fan, about 25 percent of the company’s employees work in R&D and can enjoy a “limitless” budget. Within reason, we assume.

If an employee needs a new computer every day for research, it would not be a problem. — Wang Fan, communications director at DJI.

The company really has skyrocketed since its launch in 2006. What started as a team of 20 people, grew to a company employing over 6,000 individuals. Thanks to the fast growth, the 36-year old founder of the company, Wang Tao, is currently one of the richest people in China.

So for now, we’ll just have to sit back and wait to see what the folks over at DJI will be able to come up with next. Hopefully, they will produce an interesting and futuristic product and show it off to the world soon. Fingers crossed.

Some great DJI drones:

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