We've had robotic arms, motors, and precise hands for decades. But robots could only do tasks that were "programmed exactly," inside a cage — move a part two centimeters and they're stuck. This node is about the "brain software" — the AI model that takes camera images plus human-language commands and drives the muscles (motors) on its own. It's the piece that was always missing, the bottleneck that kept robots from going from "factory machine" to "worker who can do anything" for nearly a century.
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Citrini Research Finds Humanoid Robots Advancing Without a Single ChatGPT Moment
Humanoid robots are making meaningful progress in autonomy, dexterity and repetitive real-world tasks, but widespread commercial deployment remains a work in progress, according to a report published Wednesday by Citrini Research. After a week meeting robotics labs, engineers and investors across the San Francisco Bay Area, the firm found most humanoid robots remain in development, training and tele-operated demonstrations, with real-world deployments closer to pilots than clear return-on-investment opportunities. The report examined whether robotics is approaching its own ChatGPT moment and highlighted advances from GeneralistAI and Skild AI, along with Figure AI's demonstration involving 250,000 packages, suggesting the field may advance through a mosaic of signals rather than one defining breakthrough. Basic humanoid locomotion is effectively a solved problem while complex dexterity remains more difficult, and simple repetitive tasks are already trainable. Investment in the broader robotics infrastructure is keeping pace: Tesla Inc has been preparing production lines for Optimus, XPeng Inc has launched an automated production line for its IRON humanoid robot, and Figure AI is securing access to up to 100,000 Vera Rubin GPUs from NVIDIA Corp to train the models powering its humanoid robots. The report concluded robotic autonomy is developing along a curve rather than arriving through one decisive breakthrough, with broad generalizability remaining the longer-term goal.
Spirit AI aims to deliver humanoid robots that respond to verbal commands as early as next year
Gao Yang, co-founder and chief scientist of Chinese startup Spirit AI, told Reuters that humanoid robots capable of handling most basic tasks on verbal command could become a reality as early as next year. "By mid-2027, you will be able to speak to a robot in natural language and it will complete a series of actions to carry out a task," he said, expressing confidence in the pace of software advances. The company has already achieved a roughly 90 percent success rate on simple tasks, but challenges remain with fine movements such as loosening a bottle cap and with handling unexpected situations, and adoption in ordinary households is still expected to take time. About 1,000 contract workers at the company wear data-collection devices at home and in factories, gathering movement data to train the robots. Spirit AI was founded in 2024 and has about 300 full-time employees. It has raised more than 670 million dollars to date and has deployed dozens of humanoid robots at battery giant CATL and online retail giant JD.com.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang Predicts Chip Sales Will Double Next Year
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects the company to sell roughly twice as many chips next year as it does this year, pointing to continued demand for artificial intelligence technology across industries. Huang made the projection while attending an AI-focused meeting hosted by King Charles III in Scotland, where he said businesses and governments in many countries keep investing in AI because of its potential economic benefits. The unit-growth outlook comes after Nvidia projected about $673 billion in revenue for fiscal 2028, representing growth of roughly 70% from the prior year, though the company does not disclose its total chip sales volume, making the two figures difficult to compare directly. Nvidia's portfolio includes data-center graphics processors such as Blackwell and Rubin, along with CPUs, networking chips and processors used in robotics and vehicles, and Huang has previously said the company shipped six million Blackwell GPUs over four quarters. Huang also joined executives from Google DeepMind, OpenAI and Anthropic at the Scotland meeting, where discussions included AI safety and product testing.
Lucid and Bolt Partner on European Robotaxi Business, to Deploy 25,000 Vehicles
U.S. electric vehicle maker Lucid Group and Estonian ride-hailing startup Bolt announced on the 17th that they will partner to roll out an autonomous robotaxi business across Europe. As part of a broader effort to expand its autonomous vehicle fleet to 100,000 by 2035, Bolt plans to deploy 25,000 of Lucid's advanced autonomous vehicles in major European cities. The vehicles will be based on a new dedicated electric vehicle platform that Lucid will launch in the future and will use U.S. semiconductor giant Nvidia's autonomous driving architecture, Hyperion. The two companies will jointly develop a vehicle platform compatible with Level 4 autonomous driving under the U.S. Society of Automotive Engineers standards. Bolt's autonomous driving unit will help define requirements for vehicles, software, safety, and passenger experience, and will also handle the vehicle infrastructure, operational systems, and city partnerships needed for full-scale deployment. The partnership reflects in particular how robotaxi development in Europe is shifting from trial deployments to commercial rollout.
Sift and QNX Partner to Stream Live Sensor Telemetry From Embedded Systems
Sift, the data infrastructure platform for mission-critical hardware, announced a partnership with QNX, a division of BlackBerry Limited, to deliver near real-time observability for embedded systems. Engineers can now stream live telemetry from QNX-powered systems directly into Sift and query that data within one second of it leaving the device, without any changes to the software running on the device itself. The integration works by having Sift subscribe to telemetry streams already broadcast on the QNX OS, including MQTT, with other protocols supported through custom ingestion paths; live streaming runs from a device on QNX OS 8.0 through its existing MQTT broker into Sift, where each message is queryable using standard SQL within one second. QNX technology is embedded in more than 275 million vehicles worldwide and is trusted by OEMs and Tier 1s including BMW, Bosch, Continental, Geely, Honda, Hyundai, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, Volkswagen and Volvo, and is increasingly serving as the software foundation for Physical AI in robotics, industrial automation and medical devices. Sift is available today for teams working with QNX.
Arm CEO Says Demand Is Off the Charts as Supply Chain Bottlenecks Cap Revenue
Arm CEO Rene Haas said demand is running at record strength across edge, automotive, robotics and data center, and that near-term revenue growth is capped by a multi-stage manufacturing bottleneck spanning wafers, substrates, testers and memory rather than by any softening in orders. Data-center royalty revenue more than doubled year over year last quarter, and the most recent 500 million Neoverse cores shipped in nine months after the first billion took six years, while IDC reported spending on Arm-based accelerated server platforms nearly doubled over the past two quarters and surpassed x86. Haas said his confidence in hitting the $2 billion AGI CPU target rose from May to July and again from July to September, after he earlier cut that target to $1 billion on foundry capacity worries, and Arm has secured the manufacturing capacity needed to support the $1 billion opportunity for the AGI CPU. The AGI CPU, Arm's first in-house data center chip, carries first-generation gross margin guidance in the high 30% range to low 40s with a path to 50% over the next couple of years, below core royalty margins, so silicon revenue will initially dilute reported profitability. Arm shares trade at $243.98, down 10.11% over the past month and 7.66% in the last week but up 123.2% year to date, at a trailing P/E near 247x, after Q1 FY2027 EPS of $0.25 missed the $0.40 estimate and operating margin compressed to 7% from 11%; analysts carry an average target of $288.70.
Treble Raises $18M Series A-2 Led by Paladin Capital Group
Treble Technologies has raised $18 million, approximately €15M, in a Series A-2 round led by Paladin Capital Group, with participation from existing investors KOMPAS VC, Frumtak Ventures, and the European Innovation Council Fund. The round brings the Reykjavík, Iceland-based sound simulation and synthetic acoustic data company's total funding to date to €36M. Treble said the new investment will support its expansion in the US market and extend its audio-enabled product platform further into physical AI, where its acoustic simulation and digital twin technology helps device makers and AI model developers train and test products across real-world acoustic conditions. The company counts Amazon and Logitech among its customers, and Treble CEO Finnur Pind said the platform lets development teams model reverberation, background noise and unfamiliar environments faster and more scalably than physical testing. Paladin Capital Group Vice President François Ruether said the firm expects robotics to drive a profound wave of automation and that Treble's simulation platform can help physical AI models and robots integrate visual and auditory inputs.
Fulongma to invest 200 million yuan in exclusive tie-up with Huawei Cloud for autonomous sanitation driving
After market close on September 17, Fulongma announced plans to sign a contract related to autonomous sanitation driving technology development and to cooperate with Huawei Cloud Computing Technologies on developing autonomous sanitation driving technology. The cooperation is an exclusive strategic partnership between the two sides in the field of intelligent sanitation, with a total contract value of 200 million yuan including tax. According to the announcement, the two sides have planned agreed three-ton and six-ton vehicle platforms, sweeping and washing business scenarios, and other elements. Huawei Cloud will conduct technical research on vehicle intelligent upgrades, drive-by-wire optimization, and cloud adaptation, and will exclusively develop and deploy the Fulongma Sanitation Autonomous Driving System for Fulongma, including cloud-based, vehicle-side software, and vehicle-side intelligent hardware solutions. Huawei Cloud will lead the adaptation and verification of autonomous driving algorithm software for three vehicle platforms in sweeping and washing scenarios. This is not the first time the two sides have joined forces. On December 11, 2025, Fulongma and Huawei signed a framework cooperation agreement, and on September 12 the two sides further signed a strategic cooperation agreement on embodied intelligence in the sanitation robot field. In the first half of 2026, Fulongma achieved revenue of 2.608 billion yuan, up 7.63 percent year on year, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 101 million yuan, up 7.27 percent year on year. Sanitation equipment business revenue was 808 million yuan, up 61.15 percent year on year, and sales of new energy sanitation equipment reached 938 units, up 81.43 percent year on year, accounting for 38.70 percent of total sales.
Synaptics CTS Tactile Sensing Module Gains NVIDIA Isaac Sim Support
Synaptics Incorporated announced that its first CTS tactile sensing module, powered by the SN6012T controller, is now supported within NVIDIA's Isaac Sim robotics simulation framework, letting developers prototype and validate contact and force interactions for dexterous robotic hands, grippers, and other Physical AI systems. The CTS module and Synaptics' Astra Edge AI processors integrate with NVIDIA Holoscan to unify touch, vision, and motion data, which could simplify how robotics teams design and test human-object interactions before deploying physical hardware. Synaptics' narrative projects $1.6 billion in revenue and $21.2 million in earnings by 2029, requiring 9.4% yearly revenue growth and a $512.0 million earnings increase from -$490.8 million today, and yields a $130.33 fair value, a 34% upside to its current price. The most optimistic analysts were assuming about US$1.7 billion in 2029 revenue and US$190 million in earnings, leaving investors to weigh whether the CTS Isaac Sim integration strengthens the Physical AI and humanoid robotics story or highlights how early and uncertain that market still is.
AnalogAI Licenses Microchip's SST memBrain SAGE IP for Edge AI Processors
AnalogAI has selected the memBrain Synaptic Analog Generative Engine neuromorphic hardware intellectual property from Microchip Technology's Silicon Storage Technology subsidiary for its first real-world edge AI processors. AnalogAI is using the SST memBrain SAGE IP to deliver analog compute-in-memory performance at or below one watt for ultra-low-power edge applications, targeting environment-adapting humanoid robots, drones and vehicles. Mark Reiten, senior vice president of Microchip's Intelligent Compute business unit, said the IP serves as the core inference engine for AnalogAI's first products, delivering the compute performance and power efficiency the company requires. AnalogAI chief executive officer Jaejun Lee said the company chose the silicon-proven memBrain SAGE IP after an industry-wide search because it accelerates development while meeting ultra-low-power and high-performance targets. The memBrain SAGE IP has been developed and deployed in 40 nm and 28 nm foundry processes using production-ready SuperFlash memory, with a roadmap that includes 22 nm development.
China Tightens Exit Rules in Bid to Stem Technology Leaks
China has stepped up restrictions on its citizens' travel abroad, allowing it to bar individuals deemed a threat to the country's technological or industrial security from leaving China, amid intensifying strategic competition between China and the United States in advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and humanoid robots. Kyodo News reported that the new regulation targets executives and engineers at technology companies, as well as Chinese citizens working at foreign private firms, causing considerable anxiety in the business sector. The rules state that China's Ministry of Commerce and other relevant agencies can prohibit citizens from leaving the country if they are found to have violated regulations on export controls or technology transfers, and in cases where travel could affect national security or a criminal investigation. Officials are not required to inform the individual in advance about the travel ban or the reasons for imposing such a measure. At the same time, the new regulation allows China's immigration office to demand relevant documents and electronic data during identity checks on travelers entering or leaving the country. Earlier, in April, before Chinese authorities blocked Meta Platforms from acquiring Manus, a Chinese AI startup, it was reported that China had barred two of Manus's co-founders from leaving the country. Before the new regulation took effect, Taiwanese authorities clarified on Monday, September 14, that Taiwanese citizens could face restrictions on leaving mainland China, since the Chinese government's legal system regards Taiwanese as Chinese citizens. The deputy minister of the Mainland Affairs Council said in a statement that Taiwanese businesspeople in China, as well as personnel in the technology and semiconductor industries, may be at particular risk, because they could be unilaterally interpreted as likely to harm national interests and be prevented from returning to Taiwan.
Goldman Sachs Lifts 2035 Humanoid Robot Forecast Nearly Fivefold to 6.5 Million Units
Goldman Sachs raised its 2035 forecast for humanoid robot shipments to approximately 6.5 million units, up from about 1.4 million previously, a nearly fivefold increase, in its recently published 80-page Physical AI report. The bank also lifted its 2030 forecast from 256,000 to 890,000 units and its 2026 estimate from 51,000 to 75,000, and now values the 2035 humanoid market at roughly $138 billion versus its previous $38 billion estimate. Goldman estimates each humanoid could carry $3,000 to more than $6,000 of semiconductor content, which at 6.5 million units would translate into roughly $19.5 billion to $39 billion of annual chip demand. The bank expects logistics and warehousing to lead adoption, with automotive manufacturing following, and estimates Amazon's broader automation efforts could produce about $72 billion in cumulative service-cost savings from 2026 through 2030, potentially adding as much as 240 basis points to operating margins in an upside scenario. Goldman still flags reliability, limited real-world training data, autonomy and cost as obstacles, while Morgan Stanley has predicted 1 billion humanoid robots by 2050 and RBC Capital Markets calls it a $9 trillion market by then.
Hyundai Motor Group Puts Data Flywheel Into Full Operation, Targets Level 2++ Autonomy by 2028
Hyundai Motor Group announced it has put its Data Flywheel into full operation, a system that creates a virtuous cycle of data collection, AI training, validation and deployment to accelerate its autonomous driving development. At its HMG Autonomous Driving Media Day at 42dot headquarters in Gyeonggi Province, Korea, the Group said NVIDIA solutions-based Level 2+ production is targeted for the first half of 2028 and Level 2++ in the second half of 2028, followed by Atria AI-powered Level 2++ vehicles in the second half of 2029. The Group is pursuing a Dual-Track strategy that accelerates Level 2+ production through its NVIDIA collaboration while internalizing key autonomous driving technologies through its proprietary Atria AI, with progressive sensor standardization across Hyundai Motor, Kia, 42dot and Motional. The Data Flywheel expands the Group's data ecosystem by leveraging its annual sales of 7 million vehicles and its Data Union framework, supported by a data-centric development framework based on hard example mining, continuous training and SER. A real-world Level 4 pilot is to launch in Gwangju by year-end in partnership with Korea's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport to secure large-scale validation data, while 42dot shared its Vision-Language-Action technology that integrates visual information and language-based reasoning to guide driving decisions, with VLA model validation currently underway and on-road testing and the full development process scheduled to run through early next year. Minwoo Park, President and Head of Advanced Vehicle Platform Division at Hyundai Motor Group and CEO of 42dot, said autonomous driving competitiveness is no longer about comparing specific features but about how much data a company secures, how quickly it learns and how effectively it reflects those results in products and services.
Mecka AI Nears $500M Valuation in Sequoia-Led Round
Mecka AI, a startup that collects and analyzes human motion data to train humanoid robots and other robotics, is nearing a new round led by Sequoia Capital at a valuation of about $500 million, according to two people with knowledge of the deal. The new financing comes just three months after Mecka announced that it raised $60 million in a round led by Framework Ventures that included participation from Menlo Ventures, SV Angel, and Kindred Ventures. TechCrunch has not learned the precise size of the new round, and the terms of the deal are not final and could still change. Mecka AI didn't respond to a request for comment, and Sequoia declined to comment. Mecka AI was co-founded in 2024 by four entrepreneurs, including Canadians Josh Gao and Mogen Cheng, who previously built a restaurant fintech startup, and Jason Chong, who joined Coinbase after it acquired his crypto exchange, while Duy Nguyen, the only non-Canadian on the team, focuses on operations at Mecka. As of early June, Mecka was projecting that it would end 2026 at an annual run rate of $100 million, Gao told Fortune when the startup announced its previous fundraise.
Nvidia CEO Huang Expects 70% Revenue Growth in 2027 on AI Demand
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said he expects the company to maintain strong growth as demand for artificial intelligence computing continues to outpace available capacity, reiterating his expectation of about 70% revenue growth in 2027. Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference, Huang said cybersecurity could become another major application area for AI as adoption expands beyond current workloads. Nvidia is seeking a larger portion of data-center budgets by offering complete AI infrastructure rather than individual graphics processors, and Huang said its upcoming Vera Rubin platform carries a price of roughly $40,000, compared with about $25,000 for Blackwell and $18,000 for Hopper systems. Huang also pointed to Nvidia's relationship with Anthropic, saying the chipmaker is gaining business with the Claude developer after making an investment in the company in November 2025. He identified robotics and autonomous driving as additional areas where AI development could advance over the next several years.
CoreWeave Launches Physical AI Field Engineering Offering
CoreWeave has launched Physical AI Field Engineering, a new offering designed to help automotive, aerospace, robotics and other engineering teams build, validate and deploy AI throughout the engineering lifecycle. The strategy builds on expertise from CoreWeave's Monolith AI acquisition, spanning more than 100 engineering projects in automotive, aerospace and robotics, and covers four areas: identifying engineering problems suited to AI, providing the GPU, storage and simulation infrastructure to solve them, transforming real-world engineering data into predictive models, and using agentic AI to turn insights into actions. Engagements deliver working AI applications, optimizers and dashboards directly within customers' workflows, built on CoreWeave's infrastructure and using customers' own data. Competition remains intense, with hyperscalers like Microsoft's Azure holding enormous financial resources and global infrastructure footprints, while specialized providers such as Nebius Group N.V. compete for the same customers; Nebius recently partnered with Palantir for AI-native cloud infrastructure and expects connected power capacity to reach roughly 800 MW to 1 GW by the end of 2026. CoreWeave shares have gained 24.4% year to date against the Internet Software industry's fall of 0.6%, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate for current-year earnings has been revised downward over the past 60 days; CRWV currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
JoyIn CEO Accuses OpenAI of Distilling Its Robotics Model, Plans Lawsuit
The CEO of Ant-backed humanoid robotics startup JoyIn has publicly accused OpenAI of directly distilling its technology, saying the company has begun filing a lawsuit. In a letter to OpenAI published in Chinese on Thursday, JoyIn CEO Guo Renjie said the Suzhou-based startup had presented its "extraterrestrial visitor" AI model framework in Silicon Valley weeks before OpenAI's chief scientist published "An Alien Mind" on Sept. 6, and he questioned similarities in core approaches such as recursive self-improvement and the use of AI to optimize computing power. Guo also pointed to similarities between the outer space-inspired design of OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra web page and the website for JoyIn's Aether model, which he said was released two months ago and which he decided to publicly announce on Thursday. JoyIn says Aether's perceptive, rather than text-based, approach to robotic control lets humanoids complete tasks with a 90% success rate on first attempt, and model lead Zhu Mingxuan, who left U.S. humanoid company Figure last year, said it cut training time by two-thirds and that she plans to open-source parts of the model, such as those relating to touch, but not portions related to energy use. CNBC said it could not independently verify the claims, and OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment; the accusation comes as U.S.-based Anthropic has repeatedly flagged unauthorized distillation of its models by Chinese companies, and on Tuesday a U.S. cybersecurity agency said six Chinese companies, including DeepSeek and Alibaba, distilled models from Anthropic, Google and OpenAI.
Nvidia CEO Huang Backs 70% Revenue Growth Forecast for 2027
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang reaffirmed his confidence that the chipmaker can increase revenue by 70% next year, speaking Thursday at Goldman Sachs' Communacopia + Technology Conference. Nvidia's management stunned Wall Street last month when it projected 70% year-over-year revenue growth in 2027, and executives estimated that growth could surpass 100% if the company were able to satisfy all available demand. Huang said demand for AI computing continues to exceed available supply, suggesting Nvidia's biggest near-term obstacle may be production capacity rather than customer appetite. The company is also expanding beyond graphics processors into complete AI factory systems, with the upcoming Vera Rubin platform expected to cost roughly $40,000, compared with about $25,000 for Blackwell and $18,000 for Hopper. Huang said Nvidia is gaining share at Anthropic, the developer of the Claude AI models, in which Nvidia invested in November 2025, and he identified cybersecurity as a likely next growth engine, citing partnerships with CrowdStrike, Cisco Systems and Palantir Technologies, while also pointing to advances in physical AI across robotics and autonomous driving over the next two to three years.
Pony.ai and Verne Begin Fully Driverless Robotaxi Test Rides in Zagreb
Pony.ai and Verne have started fully driverless Robotaxi test rides with passengers on public roads in Zagreb, a European first. The rides run along a 22-kilometer route linking Verne's headquarters and one of Zagreb's main business districts with Franjo Tuđman Airport Zagreb, and the fully driverless routes will be expanded over the next few months with the aim of covering the whole operating area in Zagreb. The milestone comes just over five months after Pony.ai, Verne and Uber announced their partnership to launch Europe's first commercial Robotaxi service, under which Pony.ai provides the autonomous driving technology, Verne leads service operations and Uber offers access through its platform; since that service launched in early April, the fleet has logged more than 200,000 kilometers, completed several thousand customer rides and achieved an average passenger rating of 4.7 out of 5. The test rides use Pony.ai's seventh-generation Robotaxi, powered by a Pony.ai-developed L4 domain controller built on NVIDIA DRIVE AGX, and are being conducted in accordance with applicable Croatian regulations and the approvals required for autonomous vehicle testing with passengers on public roads. Pony.ai currently operates fully driverless commercial services in four major Chinese cities and has logged more than 100 million kilometers in autonomous operations worldwide, including over 40 million kilometers in fully driverless mode, while its overseas deployment pipeline has expanded to more than 4,000 Robotaxis, including plans with Uber to deploy more than 2,000 vehicles across Europe, and it is targeting a global fleet of more than 3,500 Robotaxis by the end of 2026 across more than 20 cities.
CATL Leads DeepCtrls Series B+ With Aramco Ventures Backing
DeepCtrls recently completed a new Series B+ financing round led by CATL, with strategic investment from Aramco Ventures and participation from Taiping Innovation Investment, GF Xinde Investment Management and Fosun Capital, while existing investors Source Code Capital and Forebright Capital increased their investments. The round is the third consecutive financing for the Physical AI company in the past two months. DeepCtrls, which has been accepted into the NVIDIA Inception Program, serves more than 390 leading enterprise customers worldwide and says it is one of the earliest companies globally to achieve industrial closed-loop control powered by Physical AI. CATL, a long-standing strategic customer of DeepCtrls, said the investment will deepen exploration across AI and new-energy applications, while Aramco Ventures said the investment reflects its conviction in the company's Physical AI technology and supports its international growth. Founder and CEO Li Hui said the next phase of AI will be defined by the ability to control complex systems in the real world, and that connecting computing and energy through Physical AI transforms energy systems from a constraint on AI growth into intelligent infrastructure.
Rivian's R2 Drives Uber Robotaxi Deal Worth Up to $1.25 Billion
Rivian's much-hyped R2, which began customer deliveries on June 9, 2026, is about more than boosting sales—it underpins a strategic partnership with Uber that could unlock high-margin recurring revenue. Uber will invest up to $1.25 billion in Rivian through 2031, contingent on meeting certain milestones, and plans to deploy 10,000 fully autonomous R2 robotaxis in the first phase of their joint venture, with initial deployments in San Francisco and Miami in 2028 and expansion to 25 additional cities by 2031. The companies may negotiate the purchase of up to 40,000 additional R2 vehicles starting in 2030. Uber will pay licensing fees for Rivian's autonomous driving software, a recurring revenue stream that could significantly boost gross profits. Analysts note that robotaxi potential drives a substantial portion of Tesla's valuation—Ark Invest estimates 88-90%, Bank of America 52%, and Morningstar about 30%—highlighting the potential value for Rivian.
Antioch Raises $32M Series A Led by Greylock for Physical AI Simulation
Antioch, a simulation platform for physical AI, announced a $32 million Series A funding round led by Greylock, with participation from A*, Category Ventures, Box Group, and Icehouse Ventures. The company, founded by alumni of Tesla and Meta Reality Labs, enables robotics and autonomy teams to test AI systems in high-fidelity simulations before real-world deployment. Antioch is already working with Amazon's Ring and has partnerships with NVIDIA and Nebius. The funding will accelerate product development and expand engineering efforts as demand grows across robotics, drones, and industrial automation.
Palladyne AI and FANUC America Announce Strategic Collaboration
Palladyne AI Corp. and FANUC America have announced a strategic collaboration to advance intelligent robotic automation, combining FANUC America's industrial robot portfolio with Palladyne AI's physical AI software platform, Palladyne IQ. The partnership aims to simplify deployment, increase adaptability, and expand automation across manufacturing, warehousing, and logistics applications. Key initiatives include optimizing Palladyne IQ on FANUC platforms, developing AI-driven motion planning and adaptive robot behavior, and creating standardized deployment workflows for system integrators and end users. The companies will also focus on teleoperation, human-assisted learning, and simulation to accelerate deployment and validate customer use cases. This collaboration addresses skilled labor shortages and productivity pressures by enabling faster, more intelligent robot deployment and greater return on investment.
AI cloud platform Nscale has entered a multi-year agreement to supply computing capacity to robotics maker Figure, with the initial deal valued at $3.5 billion and potentially scaling to more than $6 billion. Nscale plans to deploy Nvidia's Vera Rubin platform at its Barstow, Texas data center starting in the second half of 2027, with the capacity to reach up to 100,000 GPUs. As part of the arrangement, Nscale will take an equity stake in Figure and become its preferred compute provider, while the two companies will explore using Figure's humanoid robots to scale Nscale's supply chain operations. Figure's Helix AI model requires substantial computational resources, and its Figure 03 robot, designed for household use, was showcased at the White House earlier this year. The deal deepens Nvidia's exposure to the physical AI market through its investments in both Nscale and Figure.
Caterpillar Partners with FieldAI to Advance AI-Powered Industrial Operations
Caterpillar Inc. is accelerating its push into AI-powered industrial operations through a collaboration with FieldAI, aiming to reshape construction, mining, and manufacturing with robotics and digital technologies. The partnership focuses on physical AI, enabling machines to interpret real-world environments for autonomous inspections, enhanced situational awareness, and operational optimization, while also leveraging NVIDIA accelerated computing and Omniverse to develop digital twins. This builds on Caterpillar's existing autonomous mining presence, and competitor Komatsu is pursuing a similar path with AIM Intelligent Machines for autonomous bulldozers and excavators. Caterpillar shares have gained 90.9% in the past year, outperforming the industry's 75.3% growth, and the Zacks Consensus Estimate points to 43.5% earnings growth in 2026 and 20.2% in 2027.
Uber Launches First Robotaxi Service in London Using Wayve Technology
Uber Technologies today launched its first autonomous vehicle, or robotaxi, service in London, using AI technology developed by Wayve, a British AI startup. Initially, all vehicles will still have a licensed safety operator seated inside to monitor the system's performance, before progressing to fully driverless operation in the future. Fewer than 20 vehicles will be available at launch. Users hailing rides through UberX, Uber Comfort, and Uber Electric may receive a Ford Mustang Mach-E equipped with Wayve's system at no extra cost. This launch comes at a time when London does not yet permit fully driverless vehicles, as several regulatory hurdles remain. Sarfraz Maredia, Uber's head of global autonomous mobility, said the rollout will help build confidence in driverless technology among both consumers and regulators. Meanwhile, UK Transport Minister Heidi Alexander called this a significant step for the future of transport in London, noting that British innovation is helping bring such technology into real-world use and expanding options for passengers. Wayve added that its AI Driver technology learns from experience in a human-like manner, allowing it to adapt to different road conditions, vehicles, weather, and cities. Uber and Wayve have been partners since 2024, with Uber also investing in Wayve to prepare for deploying Wayve-powered vehicles across multiple markets in the future.
Geek+ Interim Results: Orders Up 35.5%, Subscription Services Surge
Geek+, a global leader in intelligent robotics, announced its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2026, with new signed orders jumping 35.5% year-on-year to RMB2.385 billion and revenue climbing 25.3% to RMB1.284 billion. The company's subscription-based services emerged as a new growth engine, with orders reaching RMB156 million, up over 75% year-on-year, and subscription orders in the Americas soaring 455%. Gross margin improved to 35.8%, while adjusted net loss narrowed 32.1% to RMB60.6 million; excluding embodied intelligence R&D investment of RMB44.5 million, the loss shrank 81.9% to RMB16.1 million. Geek+ also reported strong growth in Pallet-to-Person orders (over 200% year-on-year) and manufacturing scenario orders (over 600% year-on-year), and it retained the No. 1 global AMR market share for seven consecutive years, according to Interact Analysis. Looking ahead, the company targets cumulative shipments of over 10,000 units of embodied intelligence products within three years.
Musk Warns AI Could Face 15 GW Power Shortage by 2027, Says Data Centers and Robots to Shake Up Economy
Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, said via video at the G20 meeting in North Carolina, USA, on September 1, 2026, that the growth of AI is making electricity a critical bottleneck sooner than expected. He cited estimates that by 2027, there could be a shortage of at least 15 gigawatts of power for AI chips, as AI chip production capacity grows 40-50% per year, while electricity generation outside China grows only 10-20% per year. Musk believes that countries that can increase power generation capacity quickly will attract AI data centers and generate revenue. Meanwhile, digital AI could increase the size of the global economy by 20-30%, or $20-30 trillion per year. By the end of 2027, AI will be able to perform almost all digital tasks. Humanoid robots could number more than 1 billion within 10 years and boost the economy by more than 10 times. Musk also suggested that governments adopt a "permission-first" approach rather than prohibition, and criticized EU regulations for slowing down technology development.
Amazon Triples Nvidia AI Chip Orders, Expands Robotaxi Supply Chain
Amazon.com has tripled its orders of Nvidia GPU chips to support rising demand for AI workloads on Amazon Web Services and internal projects, deepening its partnership with Nvidia. Separately, LG Innotek has been selected to supply advanced camera modules for Zoox, Amazon's autonomous robotaxi subsidiary, highlighting Amazon's push into self-driving mobility. The expanded Nvidia deal reflects Amazon's continued use of third-party GPUs alongside its own proprietary chip efforts for AI infrastructure. This shift toward heavier AI infrastructure spending and autonomous systems is drawing more investor attention to companies tied to the broader buildout of data centers, chips, and related hardware. Amazon, a US-based multiline retail group with a market cap of about $2.8 trillion, now leans on its large AWS cloud platform and logistics network as key foundations for AI and autonomous vehicle projects like Zoox.
Jingyan Technology 2026 Interim Report: Revenue Up but Profit Down, Cash Flow Under Pressure
Jingyan Technology released its 2026 interim report on August 28. Leveraging coordinated growth across its four major business segments—personal smart terminals, embodied intelligent devices, automotive, and data center AI hardware—the company maintained revenue growth thanks to volume expansion in emerging categories. However, due to declining gross margins in core businesses and exchange rate fluctuations, it faced a situation of rising revenue without rising profit, with operating cash flow under pressure. During the reporting period, the company achieved operating revenue of 1.606 billion yuan, up 13.52 percent year on year; net profit attributable to the parent company was 14 million yuan, down 82.70 percent year on year; non-GAAP net profit was 2 million yuan, down 96.72 percent; net cash flow from operating activities was negative 368 million yuan, with the net outflow widening 69.80 percent year on year. In terms of business structure, personal smart terminals remained the revenue pillar, generating 994 million yuan in revenue and accounting for more than 60 percent of the total, but gross margin fell 12.95 percentage points year on year to 27.71 percent. Among emerging businesses, embodied intelligent devices posted revenue of 337 million yuan, surging 77.48 percent year on year, with gross margin up 1.27 percentage points; data center AI hardware revenue reached 70 million yuan, up 38.03 percent year on year, with a slight gross margin increase. Although new businesses grew rapidly, they were not yet enough to offset the impact of declining gross margins in core operations, and continued losses at subsidiaries such as Antexin and Jingyan Sulian further dragged down performance. Looking ahead, demand for high-speed connectivity and liquid cooling driven by AI computing infrastructure investment offers growth opportunities, but the company faces multiple risks including global macroeconomic volatility, intensifying competition in the personal smart terminal replacement market, and rising raw material costs. The substantial increase in accounts receivable and inventory reflects mounting working capital pressure.
Amazon and Nvidia are dramatically expanding their AI infrastructure partnership, with AWS planning to deploy 2 million additional Nvidia GPUs across its global network in 2027 and 2028. The expanded agreement covers Nvidia Blackwell Ultra, Rubin and Rubin Ultra GPUs, along with broader integration across CPUs, networking, open models, data processing and robotics. AWS and Nvidia also plan to build AI factories for the U.S. government, including 100,000 GPUs dedicated to federal and national-security workloads. The partnership extends beyond raw compute, with Amazon Robotics adopting Nvidia's physical AI platform for warehouse automation, and AWS offering infrastructure built around Nvidia Vera CPUs and deepening support for Nvidia's Nemotron models. The announcement follows Nvidia's fiscal second-quarter revenue surge of 106% year over year to $96.2 billion, with Data Center revenue jumping 117% to $89 billion, and Nvidia guiding for roughly $108 billion of third-quarter revenue.
Amazon to Add 2 Million Nvidia GPUs Despite Own AI Chips
Amazon.com Inc. is doubling down on Nvidia hardware even as it continues investing in its own AI chips. Amazon Web Services said it will deploy 2 million additional Nvidia GPUs between 2027 and 2028, including Blackwell Ultra, Rubin and Rubin Ultra systems, on top of the 1 million Nvidia chips Amazon had already committed to installing starting in 2026. The scale of that deployment shows how deeply Amazon still depends on Nvidia for AI infrastructure, despite years of work on its own Trainium processors through Annapurna Labs. AWS and Nvidia are also broadening the partnership beyond GPUs, planning to build dedicated AI factories for the U.S. government using 100,000 GPUs, while Nvidia's Nemotron models will be added to Amazon Bedrock and SageMaker, and Amazon Robotics will use Nvidia's physical AI platform for warehouse automation. Amazon is not abandoning its internal chip strategy, as AWS said Annapurna Labs will work with Nvidia to extend NVLink Fusion with high-bandwidth memory for Trainium chips.
Bill Gates Warns AI Could Wipe Out Jobs and Concentrate Wealth
Bill Gates has issued a chilling warning that artificial intelligence could trigger a rapid wave of job displacement and wealth concentration, urging governments to prepare with new policies, including taxes on AI and robots. In an essay on his Gates Notes website, Gates said the transition to the AI era could be one of the most turbulent periods in human history, with effects spreading across law, customer service, medicine, software, and manufacturing within a decade. He warned that many entry-level and mid-level jobs could disappear permanently, and that AI could affect both white-collar and blue-collar roles, from sales and customer support to construction and hospitality. Gates also cautioned that the benefits of AI could flow mainly to a small group of companies and investors unless governments intervene, and he proposed a "Human Reserved" approach to keep some jobs primarily for people. He advocated taxing AI tokens and robots, arguing that companies can currently write off robots as business expenses, which encourages faster replacement of human labor, and that such a tax could fund retraining and a stronger social safety net. Despite the risks, Gates highlighted AI's potential to improve healthcare, agriculture, education, and government services, but stressed that these benefits will not happen automatically.
Xusheng Group 2026 Interim Report: Revenue and Net Profit Both Rise, Guangzhou Industrial Investment Holdings Takes Control
Xusheng Group released its 2026 interim report on August 27. During the reporting period, it achieved operating revenue of 2.428 billion yuan, up 15.86 percent year on year; net profit attributable to the parent company was 238 million yuan, up 18.48 percent; and non-GAAP net profit was 203 million yuan, up 14.86 percent. Among these, the auto parts business, as the core foundation, achieved revenue of 1.94 billion yuan, up 13.76 percent year on year; the energy storage business, as the second growth curve, achieved revenue of 290 million yuan; and the embodied intelligence business is in the early stage of industrialization and has already contributed initial incremental growth. During the reporting period, the company completed a change of control, with Guangzhou Industrial Investment Holdings Group becoming the controlling shareholder, which is expected to provide resource and market synergies. The company noted that attention should be paid to risks such as aluminum price fluctuations, trade tariffs, and the commercialization progress of new businesses.
Reservoir and John Deere Launch $10 Million Rugged AI Partnership
Reservoir announced a $10 million, three-year R&D partnership with John Deere to accelerate the development and commercialization of rugged AI technologies for high-value crop agriculture. The announcement was made at Reservoir's inaugural Ruggedize conference. Since opening its Salinas and Sonoma sites in spring 2026, Reservoir Farms has welcomed more than 20 agricultural startups, highlighting early traction for its field-based model. The partnership will also expand innovation opportunities in rural communities by connecting entrepreneurs and deep-tech engineers with growers and industry partners across California, Arizona, and soon other key agricultural regions.
Tsumura-led consortium launches full-scale humanoid robot data factory
A consortium of private companies aiming to realize the social implementation of humanoid robots, including Tsumura, began full-scale operations of a data factory in Narashino City, Chiba Prefecture, on the 26th. The consortium, J-HRTI, will operate up to 40 robots made by a leading Chinese manufacturer, collecting experimental data on movements needed by participating companies to facilitate practical application. Tsumura's Production Division Head, Koichi Kumagai, stated that automation is essential as labor shortages become more severe due to a declining working-age population, and he particularly aims to significantly reduce nighttime work. The president of DMS, a direct mail dispatch service, explained that paper shapes and weights vary, and millimeter-level adjustments rely on human fingertips, so they will convert human know-how into data for robot learning. The consortium also includes Fuyo General Lease and Yamazen, and the robots introduced are made by Shanghai-based Zhiyuan Robotics. The CEO of the secretariat, INSOL-HIGH, emphasized that while the hardware is Chinese-made, the operating platform is being developed in Japan.
Robotics Startup Generalist Hits $3B Valuation After Fresh Funding
Robotics startup Generalist has reached a $3 billion valuation after raising nearly $200 million in additional funding, according to a TechCrunch report citing people with knowledge of the matter. The funding was led by 8VC and extends Generalist's $400 million Series B, which was led by Radical Ventures in June at a $2 billion valuation, bringing the total Series B funding to $600 million. Founded in 2024 by former Google DeepMind researchers Pete Florence and Andy Zeng, along with former Boston Dynamics engineer Andrew Barry, Generalist's investors include Nvidia, Union Square Ventures, Bezos Expeditions, Radical Ventures, and 8VC. The company's AI foundation model enables robots to learn new tasks from a single 3- to 12-second demonstration without additional training.
Nvidia Unveils Jetson Orin Nano 2 Edge AI Computer
Nvidia unveiled the Jetson Orin Nano 2, an entry-level edge AI computer for robots, drones, and vision AI systems. The new system delivers twice the inference performance of its predecessor, Jetson Orin Nano Super, while using 40% less power at the same performance level. It provides 78 trillion operations per second of AI compute, 8GB of memory, and an 8-core Arm CPU. The product runs Nvidia's open software stack and supports models including Nvidia's Cosmos and Nemotron, Google's Gemma 4, and Alibaba's Qwen 3. Nvidia expects the module and developer kit to become available in the first half of 2027.
SpaceX, Tesla, Intel Break Ground on $16.8 Billion Texas Chip Fab
SpaceX, Tesla, and Intel have broken ground on the Terafab, the world's largest vertically integrated chipmaking factory in Grimes County, Texas. The initial phase will cost $16.8 billion, with total costs across all phases potentially surpassing $119 billion. The 100-million-square-foot facility is expected to meet SpaceX and Tesla's projected computing demand of more than 1 terawatt per year. SpaceX and Tesla will fund construction, while Intel will support development with its licensed chipmaking process and foundry operations. Approximately 75% of the chips will go to SpaceX's orbital data centers and satellite constellations, with the remaining 25% powering Tesla's Optimus robots, self-driving vehicles, and Cybercabs. Texas is supporting the project with a $30 million grant and tax abatements. SpaceX's capex surged more than sixfold year over year in the second quarter of 2026, from $2.8 billion to $18.4 billion, with $15.8 billion allocated to expanding its AI business.
Aptiv to Support NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 for Production-Ready Physical AI
Aptiv PLC announced it is supporting NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano 2 to help customers accelerate deployment of production-ready physical AI and intelligent edge systems. The collaboration expands Aptiv's work with NVIDIA across Jetson platforms, including Jetson Thor, and will provide sensing, software, lifecycle support, and systems integration for drones, robotics, industrial automation, and other edge applications. Aptiv will offer its PULSE surround-view camera and ultrashort-range radar, Gen 8 radar, robotics compute solutions running on Jetson Orin Nano 2, Orin NX, and AGX Orin, plus Wind River software and lifecycle support. The Jetson Orin Nano 2 delivers 2x the inference performance of Jetson Orin Nano, consumes 40% less power at the same performance, and features 78 TOPS, 8GB of memory, and an 8-core Arm CPU.