General-purpose humanoid robots, from lab demos to factory pilots.
In one week Korea cleared 20 humanoids to work beside people, Shanghai set a goal of 8,000 factory humanoids by 2028, and UBTECH's 10,000-a-year plant came into focus. Here is what each move means.
Korea's trade ministry exempted Robros from fence rules so 20 bipedal humanoids can clean chip parts, place car panels, stack ship scaffolding and move cold-chain boxes.
On a Unitree G1, Galbot's planner–tracker stack finished 50 unseen physical layouts without falls; 45 were contact-free. Destination success in sim was 98.67% — contact-free 70.3%.
GMO AIR began Japanese pre-orders for the G1+ on Oct 13: a neck, stronger motors, 3D LiDAR and voice interaction. Founder Wang Xingxing now sees an embodied-AI tipping point in 1–2 years.
A three-month trial with selected households will test whether the $20,000 NEO can do chores safely and reliably before customer deliveries.
China's IP office published BYD's embodied-intelligent-robot design patent on Oct 9, 2026 — a bipedal look aimed at service, education and industry — but the company has still not formally unveiled the product.
Agility Robotics' fifth-generation humanoid adds human detection and an independent safety controller, backed by $300M+ in conditional orders; early access in H1 2027.
General Catalyst led Minerva Humanoids' ~$10M pre-seed for Roger, a semi-autonomous humanoid aimed at oil & gas and EOD; founders include ex-Tesla Optimus and Boston Dynamics Stretch talent.
Figure says its humanoid tidied rooms, folded towels and made beds in 30 unseen Bay Area homes with zero local data, backed by a $3.5B compute deal with Nscale.
The Austin humanoid firm expanded its ~90,000 sq ft training hub and wheeled/bipedal Apollo 2 platforms with Google DeepMind, Mercedes-Benz and GXO sites feeding the commercial Apollo 3.