Humanoids, factory automation, agricultural bots, and the machines moving into the real world.
106 articles
Hyundai Motor Group disclosed on August 21 it will sell its 47.5 percent stake in The Robotics and AI Institute to SoftBank, narrowing its focus to commercializing Atlas through Boston Dynamics. Two days earlier, JPMorgan toured Tesla's Fremont plant and confirmed Model S/X lines are being retooled for humanoid production.
Unitree Robotics closed its August 19 Shanghai STAR Market debut up 460.34 percent, valuing China's first mainland-listed humanoid robot maker at roughly $50 billion. The IPO was more than 8,000 times oversubscribed by retail investors and turned the company's founder into one of China's richest individuals.
BYD on August 8 publicly unveiled the Xiao Di humanoid for dealership customer-facing work. Figure AI has now deployed more than 1,000 humanoid units to paying customers, and Tesla Optimus Gen 3 is in low-volume ramp at Giga Texas. The combined signal: humanoid robotics is crossing from prototype to first commercial deployments.
Unitree priced its Shanghai IPO on August 18 at 150.8 yuan per share, raising 6.1 billion yuan and listing August 19 at roughly 61 billion yuan ($8.6 billion) — the first mainland humanoid robot maker to trade publicly. The conference opens August 20 in Beijing with 300 companies and 2,000 exhibits, and the World Humanoid Robot Games from August 22–26 will test whether the robots can earn their keep.
Unitree Robotics on Monday unveiled its new humanoid 'Superman,' which performs a 2-meter vertical jump from a stand and a 12.66 m/s sprint on 0.85-meter legs — both metrics the company says exceed the standing human world records. Three days later, the company will debut on Shanghai's main board after a 6.1 billion yuan IPO.
Figure AI's third-generation humanoid robot has now worked alongside BMW's Spartanburg factory for more than 60 days, performing 24/7 logistics sorting on the same line where its predecessor Figure 02 helped assemble 30,000 vehicles — as Unitree's $904 million Shanghai IPO resets valuation benchmarks.
LG said Friday it signed a memorandum of understanding with Nvidia to cooperate in robotics, with a jointly developed next-generation bipedal humanoid to be unveiled in the first quarter of 2027.
Honda has developed a highly dexterous robotic hand that can grasp a 1.6-millimeter screw and lift 5 kilograms, marking a return to robotics with an industrial focus after retiring ASIMO, Kyodo reported August 13.
Hangzhou's DEEP Robotics released an 18-second uncut clip on August 13 of its 65-kilogram DR02 humanoid climbing a full outdoor staircase with no handrails or assistance, days after seeking a $371 million STAR Market IPO.
From Figure's 249,600-parcel livestream to AgiBot's Elf G2 Max inside JD's 'Smart Wolf' facilities and ROBOTERA hitting 85 percent of human feeding speeds, logistics has become the proving ground for humanoid robots, Gasgoo reports.
Shanghai-based AgiBot shipped about 8,400 humanoid robots in the first half of 2026, capturing 44 percent of the global market and overtaking Unitree with a 562 percent year-on-year shipment surge, as China's MIIT expects total national output to exceed 100,000 units this year.
Figure CEO Brett Adcock releases video of Figure 03 climbing a ladder using updated Helix vision-integrated AI — meanwhile Boston Dynamics' Robot Training Center in Savannah has begun day-and-night data operations ahead of Hyundai's 2028 deployment plan.
China's largest EV maker has publicly deployed its first humanoid, Xiao Di, a 1.61-meter service robot with 31 degrees of freedom now welcoming visitors at its Di Space experience center in Zhengzhou, the South China Morning Post reported.
Retail investors piled into the Hangzhou robot maker's $900 million Shanghai debut, producing a lot-winning rate of roughly 0.018% and a valuation near 60 billion yuan, as global humanoid shipments surged 272% in the first half.
The electronics giant has been quietly building a humanoid robot using Samsung Gauss AI, proprietary actuators and manufacturing data from a planned Gumi Data Factory, alongside its Rainbow Robotics stake.
The humanoid's data operations team at the Savannah, Georgia robot center will run day and night shifts like an automotive plant — the latest sign Hyundai is compressing the 2028 production-line deployment timeline, Edaily reported.
The production Atlas humanoid returns to a battery station and replaces a depleted pack autonomously in under three minutes, versus a 90-minute recharge, cutting downtime for multi-shift industrial work, TechRepublic reported August 7.
The FCC's new restrictions on foreign-produced mobile robots block new imports of robot vacuums, lawn mowers, and humanoid and quadruped robots, prompting responses from Shark, iRobot and Eufy — while experts debate whether the move is a security fix or a nearshoring tactic.
Mitsubishi Motors plans to begin mass-producing AI-powered humanoid robots from Tokyo startup Highlanders at its Kyoto plant in the first half of 2027, targeting up to 1,000 robots per month, the company said this week.
Humanoid-robot maker Unitree priced its STAR Market IPO at 150.80 yuan per share, seeking to raise about $904 million. Reuters reports the offering values the company at roughly $9 billion, with DeepSeek among strategic investors.
Alphabet's autonomous driving unit said Tuesday that anyone in Dallas can now hail a robotaxi through its app. About 150,000 riders used the service during the waitlist period since it opened in February.