Optimus, Figure, Unitree and the race to build robots that walk, work and think.
Google is pushing Gemini 4 Argon toward robotics, Agility is preparing Digit 5 for industry, and HKUST is giving robot bodies a sense of touch. Here is what is confirmed, claimed and still unknown.
Boston Dynamics has just presented a 13-degree-of-freedom, four-fingered hand for its new Atlas. At the same time, specialist press reports that Tesla Optimus runs into precisely that problem: making the hands. The lock on humanoid robotics is not where people are looking.
On 30 September 2026 Figure AI decommissioned its F.02 fleet in Finland. This is not a recycling puzzle: it is a demonstration of policy transfer to an unseen site.
IDC counted close to 25,000 humanoid robots shipped worldwide in H1 2026. The real story is not the growth rate: it is AgiBot taking the top slot with 69% of shipments still going to demonstrations.
The US Army has named the five winners of the xTechHumanoid competition, created to explore military uses of humanoid robots. The result says as much about the state of the technology as about the robots themselves.
Amazon announces more than $100 million of advanced manufacturing in Indiana, with 300 jobs and a planned 2028 opening. The company says its robots assist with 75% of customer orders delivered worldwide.
AGIBOT and Chimelong have put more than 300 humanoid robots into service at a theme park in Zhuhai, including hotel operations. The first revenue-generating mass deployment — and a milestone on the way to 20,000 robots.
The International Federation of Robotics has published its 2025 figures: 5 million industrial robots in service, 600,000 installed in a single year. The country ranking is being reshuffled — and France is slipping back.
Qualcomm has announced an agreement to acquire PickNik, the company that created MoveIt inside ROS. The important point is not the purchase: it is the pledge to keep MoveIt 1 and 2 open source and to maintain third-party hardware support.
On 21 September 2026 Boston Dynamics opened a dedicated Atlas training centre inside Hyundai's Savannah plant. It is the industry's first permanent robot behaviour factory — and the answer to the objection that humanoid robots work in videos but not in production.
Beijing is reviewing humanoid robotics IPOs and questioning the quality of revenues. After Unitree's stock-market crash, the whole investment thesis is being recomposed.
Figure reports zero-shot autonomy in 30 homes across the San Francisco Bay Area. The gain came from pretraining on human behaviour data, not from better perception.
Agility Robotics unveils Digit 5 for close-proximity work without physical barriers. Payload, battery, safety behaviors: what is announced — and what is not yet deployed.
According to relays of Goldman’s Physical AI note, humanoid shipments are seen at 75,000 in 2026 and about 6.5 million in 2035. Forecast, not factory count.
Trade coverage describes UBTECH’s Liuzhou plant as a 10-minute cycle designed for more than 10,000 humanoids a year. Capacity is not shipments.
Hexagon is training AEON in Schaeffler’s Humanoid Gym before a planned deployment of at least 1,000 robots. What is contracted, what remains unproven and which metrics matter.
Beijing is hosting 2,056 robots across 51 events. Sport impresses, but cable insertion, shifted packages and error recovery reveal the real state of autonomy.
Tesla's July 22 shareholder update replaced late July or August with later this year. What is confirmed, what is only announced, and what to watch.
Unitree listed in Shanghai with audited accounts: $248M revenue, $87M profit, 5,500+ humanoids shipped. The numbers rewrite what the industry claims about itself.
Unitree raised 6.1 billion yuan and its shares surged on their first trading day. Verified figures, industrial implications and risks behind 2026’s landmark robot IPO.
Beijing’s conference reports 373 exhibitors, more than 3,000 products and 311 new releases. We separate demonstrations, useful applications and missing evidence.
Gemini Robotics 2 combines VLA control, embodied reasoning and on-device AI. Here is what is available, what it can do and what remains unproven.
Three recent humanoids point to three different futures: industrial deployment, fleet learning and public-facing robot services. Here is the evidence behind the spectacle.
A smooth video is not enough. These seven checks separate measurable progress from a carefully staged robot demonstration.
GENE.01 can reportedly sense touch, proximity, force and temperature. The smart skin is promising, but industrial safety remains unproved.
What future military robots already look like: robot dogs, ground vehicles, drones, autonomous vessels and logistics systems — their missions, and the need for human control.
China, Singapore and New York are putting patrol robots, humanoids, quadrupeds and drones into public spaces. Here is what they can do, what they carry and where the limits belong.
UBTECH has launched the UWORLD U1 Lite, Pro and Ultra. Here is what is confirmed about price, capability, orders, privacy and limitations.
Ameca, Atlas, Figure 03 and Unitree G1 feel uncanny for different reasons. Here are the facts behind the reaction.
From cameras to actuators, this is the full chain that lets a humanoid perceive, decide, walk and grasp—and the points that still fail.
Atlas, Figure 03, Optimus, Unitree G1 and NEO compared by evidence, not demo hype.
The viral comparison is false: here is the official G1 starting price and what it actually includes.
Optimus connects Tesla's AI, batteries and factories—but the scale and timeline remain unproven.
BMW, GXO and the first deployments show a real but narrow market: repetitive handling, controlled zones and safety designed at system level.
