Physical AI, humanoid robots, robot learning, and embodied intelligence from Figure, Boston Dynamics, Tesla, and research labs.
436 articles
Companies developing humanoid robots are competing to gather everyday video footage needed to train machines for real-world tasks at home and in workplaces. This data race spans multiple countries as firms seek an edge in making humanoids genuinely useful. Source: globalsources.com
Mykhailo Fedorov, ousted as Ukraine's defense minister in July and previously known for building the country's Army of Drones, has now launched an Army of Robots initiative. He aims to see a humanoid robot deployed in combat against Russian forces within half a year. Source: dronexl.co
MBody AI CEO John Fowler argues the robotics industry is repeating the hardware-fragmentation problem once seen between PC makers like Dell and HP, as companies deploy robots from multiple incompatible manufacturers. Source: benzinga.com
Tesla's shift from EVs to humanoid robots is running into trouble, with complicated robotic hands and unhappy workers who are reluctant to help train their potential replacements. Source: arstechnica.com
Startup Feather has launched a humanoid robot priced at $29,990, joining a wave of affordable machines that go beyond dancing demos and offer real functionality without the usual six-figure price tag. Source: forbes.com
Feather Robotics raised $7.6 million in pre-seed funding to grow its modular humanoid robot platform, aimed at letting third-party developers build physical AI applications on top of it. Source: theaiinsider.tech
Humanoid robots often move awkwardly because their AI 'brains' don't fully match how their physical bodies work. A new open-source tool tries to fix this by having robots learn smoother motion patterns modeled on human movement, building on vision-language-action AI models. Source: forbes.com
Black Forest Labs is stepping into robotics with FLUX 3 Action, a new open-world-action model. It analyzes camera feeds in real time to determine the next move a robot should make. Source: the-decoder.com
This week's industry roundup covers major raises spanning robotic training data, synthetic testing for acoustic sensing, and automation for maritime vessels, among other areas. Notable funded startups include Eight Knot and Embra AI. Source: automate.org
Qualcomm announced plans to acquire PickNik Robotics, deepening its commitment to building an open ecosystem for physical AI and robotics development. The deal signals Qualcomm's push to expand beyond chips into robotics software and tooling. Source: qualcomm.com
AGIBOT and Chimelong have launched a large-scale theme park powered by embodied AI, deploying robots across entertainment, education, guest services, and hotel operations. The opening coincided with the rollout of AGIBOT's 20,000th humanoid robot. Source: agibot.com
NVIDIA's newest Isaac ROS release brings AI agent functionality to the ROS developer community while broadening its open-source physical AI toolset. The update also aims to widen deployment options across robotics platforms. Source: blogs.nvidia.com
After humanoid robots dominated AI hype in recent years, attention has shifted to actually putting them to work in real industrial settings. Korea has emerged as a frontrunner, deploying humanoids across sectors like automotive assembly, shipbuilding and steel production. Source: koreaherald.com
MIT researchers developed a new AI control system that gives their small flying robot insect-like agility, increasing its speed by roughly 450 percent. The upgrade also lets the robot perform ten sharp maneuvers previously out of reach. Source: sciencedaily.com
Figure has committed billions of dollars toward gathering more training data for its humanoid robots. Just four weeks after the announcement, the company reports that the expanded dataset already boosted its robots' success rate at household chores by a factor of six. Source: forbes.com
Chinese regulators are slowing down a wave of humanoid robot companies rushing to go public, according to people familiar with the matter. Authorities are reportedly scrutinizing these listings more closely as concerns grow that market enthusiasm has outpaced the sector's actual technological progress. Source: reuters.com
A fresh benchmark result showing a 56% score for Figure's humanoid robot is prompting deeper scrutiny of how well embodied AI agents actually generalize across tasks. The finding is pushing companies like Unitree and Agibot to rethink strategies for proving real-world adaptability rather than narrow task performance. Source: eu.36kr.com
Amid the ongoing robotics investment boom, one industry expert points to three US-based humanoid robot companies worth watching. The pick reflects growing investor interest in translating robotics hype into concrete stock opportunities. Source: forbes.com
OpenAI is reportedly offering robotics engineers annual salaries as high as $500,000, according to its latest job postings. The listings hint at the scope of OpenAI's ambitions to expand beyond software and into physical robotics. Source: businessinsider.com
A Chinese startup developing AI systems for humanoid robots claims that by next year, robots could complete most general-purpose tasks based purely on verbal commands. However, the company acknowledges that true everyday usefulness in homes and workplaces will still take longer to achieve. Source: reuters.com