Barclays says humanoid robots will drive demand for data-centre infrastructure and chips before mass deployment

Analyst
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Barclays analysts say humanoid robots will create demand for data-centre infrastructure, AI accelerators, memory and edge processors well before widespread commercial deployment begins. The analysts mapped more than 100 companies across the emerging value chain and identified intelligence as the biggest near-term constraint, requiring a computing stack that spans data-centre systems for simulation and synthetic training data, foundation models that translate perception into actions, and on-robot processors that execute decisions locally under strict latency, power and safety limits. Simulation is especially critical because developers lack internet-scale datasets for training, and demand for compute may scale ahead of robot production as models are trained and digital twins are created, potentially benefiting Nvidia, AMD, Qualcomm, Micron, SK Hynix, Samsung Electronics and TSMC. Nvidia already offers an integrated robotics stack including Omniverse, Isaac Sim, GR00T foundation models and Jetson processors. The humanoid market is currently estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion, with forecasts ranging from $10 billion to $25 billion by 2030 and more optimistic projections reaching around $200 billion by 2035, though large-scale economic deployment may be closer to 2035 than 2030 as safety, reliability and autonomy remain unresolved. Actuators account for an estimated 30% to 50% of a humanoid's component cost, compared with 10% to 15% for onboard compute, but low robot volumes currently limit standardisation and supplier investment.

Impact on stocks 8

Semiconductors · 4 stocks
SK Hynix Inc
000660
▲ PositiveDemandrelevance

Memory demand from humanoid robots benefits SK Hynix.

Artificial Intelligence · 3 stocks
NVIDIA Corporation
NVDA
▲ PositiveDemandrelevance

Nvidia's integrated robotics stack positions it to benefit from compute demand.

Financials · 1 stocks

Theme Impact 11

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