Recent Robot News
Stay up to date with robotics, AI breakthroughs, and product launches.
543 news found • Page 9 of 12
Moxin Technology Launches MoWorld: A 50FPS Interactive World Model Running on Domestic NPUs
Moxin Technology has released MoWorld, an interactive world model achieving over 50 FPS on domestic Chinese NPUs. This development offers a 70 percent cost reduction compared to GPU solutions, shifting the hardware supply chain for embodied AI.
China Tightens Rules on Human-Like AI as Companion Robots Multiply
New Chinese rules on emotionally engaging, human-like artificial intelligence take effect around July 15, prompting Doubao to end a feature that let users build customized AI companions, even as companies keep racing to launch emotionally responsive humanoid robots for consumers.
Samsung's Rainbow Robotics Boosts Humanoid Supply to Toyota Fivefold
Rainbow Robotics, the South Korean humanoid maker majority owned by Samsung Electronics, has increased its cumulative RB-Y1 robot supply to Toyota to around 25 units, five times its initial 2024 batch, as the world's top selling automaker expands its use of Korean made humanoids.
HIVE Raises $15 Million to Retrofit Industrial Machines With Physical AI
London and Norway based startup HIVE has raised 15 million dollars in pre series A funding led by SuperSeed to build a retrofit intelligence platform that turns existing industrial vehicles into autonomous machines, with live deployments already running in Scandinavia.
Teleoperated Humanoid Robots Complete Live Surgery for the First Time
Engineers and surgeons at UC San Diego report the first successful use of teleoperated humanoid robots to perform live surgery, with a five foot, 27 kilogram robot named Surgie completing a gallbladder removal in a preclinical trial published in Nature.
New Jersey Bill S1677 Mandates Lidar for Robotaxis, Challenging Tesla's Camera-Only Approach
New Jersey's proposed S1677 bill requires autonomous vehicles to use redundant sensor modalities, effectively blocking Tesla's camera-only Robotaxi from operating in the state without hardware changes.
Shimizu Corporation Tests Unitree Humanoid Robots for Construction Sites
Shimizu Corporation has initiated field trials of AI-powered humanoid robots, including models from Unitree, to address Japan's severe labor shortage in the construction industry.
Tang Mu’s XBOT Raises Hundreds of Millions RMB as It Moves from Labs to Cafes
XBOT closed two financing rounds totaling several hundred million RMB and publicly launched XOS 3.0 plus three robot models on June 30, 2026. The company published unit prices for the C3 and I3 and reported over 1,000 deployed units and 2025 revenue above 100 million RMB.
Amap Enters the Physical AI Arena: Analyzing the Strategic Logic Behind Phys AI Data
Amap has launched Phys AI Data, a spatial data foundation featuring a simulation foundry and spatial memory brain, aiming to solve the data bottleneck in embodied AI.
Lingjing Zhiyuan Secures 100M+ RMB Angel Rounds to Power Embodied AI
Shanghai-based embodied AI computing startup Lingjing Zhiyuan has secured over 100 million RMB in Angel and Angel+ funding rounds. The investment will accelerate the development of its Dvorak Architecture and specialized hardware for humanoid robots.
Mistral Launches Robostral Navigate: A Single-Camera Robotics Model
Mistral introduces Robostral Navigate, an 8B parameter model enabling autonomous robot navigation using only a single RGB camera, eliminating the need for LiDAR and depth sensors.
McLaren Construction partners with FieldAI to roll out robot dogs at scale on UK sites
UK contractor McLaren Construction has partnered with US autonomy firm FieldAI to roll out Boston Dynamics Spot robot dogs across multiple UK projects. Following trials since December 2025, the Spot units with FieldAI navigation will automate site surveys, progress capture and routine quality checks, feeding structured data into BIM and issue trackers.
XFEON raises 300M+ RMB to accelerate physical AI chips and embodied data platform
Chengdu-based XFEON has closed a funding round of more than 300 million yuan led by Dingxu Investment, with Kaipuyun, Gaojie Capital and Anshu Capital participating. Founded in 2021, the company builds physical AI chips and an embodied data infrastructure, and plans to use the capital to advance next generation silicon, an embodied data flywheel, an embodied brain platform and scenario driven commercialization.
Europe Enters the Humanoid Race: UMA’s Northstar and the Talent Diaspora
UMA unveiled its Northstar humanoid design in Paris on July 7, 2026, signaling Europe’s bid to turn research strength and regulatory rigor into commercial momentum. Founded by former Tesla Autopilot engineer Rémi Cadène and backed by AI scientist Yann LeCun, the company aims at manufacturing and logistics, leveraging open-source efforts like LeRobot and building EU AI Act compliance into the product.
World Robot Conference 2026 dates set for Aug 19 to 23, A-share robot stocks rally
China has scheduled the World Robot Conference 2026 for Aug 19 to 23 at the Beiren Yichuang convention center in Beijing E-Town, following a July 6 announcement by Zhao Yunfeng of the China Institute of Electronics. A-share robot concept stocks rose on July 7, with Julun Intelligent briefly hitting the daily limit-up as traders positioned for show-driven news.
ABB Robotics Launches Flexley Stack F712, an Autonomous Forklift That Navigates by Sight
ABB Robotics launched the Flexley Stack F712, an autonomous forklift that uses camera-based vSLAM navigation instead of floor markers or beacons, bringing shared 3D fleet mapping to warehouse and automotive operations.
luna 4 min read
Ant Group’s Lingbo open sources LingBot-Depth 2.0 and LingBot-Vision, a spatially native embodied vision foundation model
Ant Group’s Lingbo Technology unveiled LingBot-Depth 2.0 and open sourced LingBot-Vision, a foundation model that makes boundary structure a core pretraining signal.
MIIT forecasts China humanoid output to top 100,000 units in 2026 ahead of WAIC
China expects production of humanoid robots to surpass 100,000 units in 2026, a senior MIIT official said at a July 7 briefing in Shanghai ahead of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. The outlook is anchored in a policy mix of nearly 200 relevant standards, a large open source developer base on AtomGit with 11 million users, and an accelerating state backed AI investment fund.
UMA debuts Northstar humanoid and Real-Time Learning, sets 2026 pilots with a Europe-first plan
Paris-based UMA unveiled the design of its Northstar humanoid and a Real-Time Learning architecture at the Machina Summit, pitching a robot that acquires skills from demonstrations and corrective feedback while deployed on factory and logistics floors.
Forterra says 100+ Lancer autonomous ATVs have supported Ukraine’s front lines for nine months
Forterra disclosed that more than 100 Lancer autonomous all-terrain vehicles have supported Ukrainian forces for nine months, completing over 1,100 missions since October 2025. The Polaris-based robots have hauled an estimated 777,440 pounds of supplies, traveled more than 2,500 miles, and conducted 52 casualty evacuations in what the company calls the largest US defense-tech autonomous ground vehicle deployment to face combat.
WaiV Robotics Solves Drone Landings on Moving Ships From Stealth
UK startup WaiV Robotics emerged from stealth on July 6 with an autonomous recovery system that lets commercial drones land on moving vessels without anyone on deck, targeting offshore inspection, defence, and emergency response markets.
Daedong Robotics Raises 5 Billion Won to Push Farm Robots Into Factories
South Korean AI field robot maker Daedong Robotics raised 5 billion won in a Series A round backed by GS Engineering and Posco venture arms on July 6, aiming to move autonomous driving technology proven on farms into construction and manufacturing sites.
Hyundai Deploys Boston Dynamics Atlas at FIFA World Cup 2026
Hyundai deployed a production-version Boston Dynamics Atlas humanoid at a FIFA World Cup 2026 match, signaling a shift from lab demonstrations to live-environment commercial activations.
Tsinghua Defends RoboCup Humanoid Title as Focus Shifts to AI Software
Tsinghua University's Huoshen Team defended its Humanoid League title at RoboCup 2026 in Incheon, utilizing a commercial Booster T1 platform. The victory highlights a structural shift in robotics competitions: teams are abandoning custom hardware to focus entirely on AI software, perception, and autonomous decision-making.
Worldmodeldata Secures £7M Seed to Build Gaming Data Supply Chain
Cambridge-based Worldmodeldata emerges from stealth with a £7M seed round to aggregate licensed video game data for robotics training, targeting a critical bottleneck in physical AI development.
China Accelerates Embodied AI Rules Amid 508% Humanoid Shipment Surge
As global humanoid shipments surge past 18,000 units in 2025, China's embodied AI industry is urging faster regulation to manage deployment risks and prevent a market bubble.
UBTECH and Unitree Establish Humanoid Manufacturing Hubs in Tianjin TEDA
UBTECH and Unitree have signed strategic agreements to establish humanoid robot manufacturing and service hubs in the Tianjin Economic-Technological Development Area, accelerating regional industrial-chain competition in Northern China.
Tokyo Artisan Intelligence Prepares Edge AI Chips for Robotics Production
Japan's Tokyo Artisan Intelligence has partnered with Malaysia's Oppstar to mass-produce reconfigurable edge AI chips targeting robotics, railways, and factory automation by 2027.
BMW Deploys Figure 03 Humanoid as Germany's Leipzig Plant Tests Wheeled AEON Robot
BMW is expanding its physical AI strategy with Figure 03 in Spartanburg while Leipzig tests Hexagon's wheeled AEON humanoid, showing the automaker's multi-robot approach to factory automation.
luna 5 min read
Avride Deploys Cloud VLMs as a Safety Net for Autonomous Delivery Robots
Delivery robot operator Avride has integrated cloud based vision language models into its live operations, creating an automated early warning system that flags complex edge cases for remote human assistants without adding latency to the robot's onboard driving stack.
SimFoundry Automates the Missing Link in Robot Training Data
A joint research team from NVIDIA GEAR, Fei-Fei Li's Stanford lab, and Georgia Tech has introduced SimFoundry, a system that automatically generates interactive, trainable robot simulation environments from a single real world video.
The Missing Piece of the World Model Economics Story
Researchers from NYU and Yann LeCun's startup AMI have developed AdaJEPA, a method that allows Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture world models to adapt to unseen physical environments in milliseconds without catastrophic forgetting.
Japan's Humanoid Robots Face a China Reckoning at Tokyo Summit
At a Tokyo humanoid robotics summit, Chinese systems outnumbered Japanese ones, exposing Japan's shift from hardware leadership to an urgent race in AI software, shared data, and scale. Japan is responding with AIRoA, a national data platform, and major state-backed investment to deploy 10 million AI-equipped robots by 2040.
luna 5 min read
Humanoid Claims 99 Percent Bimanual Task Reliability With KinetIQ Ascend Framework
London based robotics company Humanoid has introduced KinetIQ Ascend, a reinforcement learning approach that the company claims pushes bimanual manipulation success rates from 78 percent to 99 percent while operating faster than human demonstration speed.
Singapore's dConstruct Raises $125M to Scale GPS-Denied Robot Autonomy
dConstruct Technologies raised $125 million in Series A funding as the standout company from Singapore's RoboNexus robotics accelerator, using its d.ASH platform to power robots in GPS-denied environments.
luna 4 min read
Tesollo Kickstarts IPO: Inside Korea's First Dexterous Hand Public Listing
South Korean dexterous hand manufacturer Tesollo has selected KB Securities as its lead underwriter, kicking off the process for a technology-special KOSDAQ listing targeted for 2027. The move marks Korea's first pure-play dexterous hand public listing attempt. This article examines Tesollo's position within the Korean robotics ecosystem, its chaebol research client base, and how its high-degree-of-freedom technology compares to the volume-driven Chinese component market.
Robot City Explained: Why Pudu Robotics Just Deployed a Physical AI Fleet Across Davos
A ten year old commercial robotics company from Shenzhen has turned one of Europe's most famous alpine towns into a living laboratory for physical AI. Pudu Robotics deployed a coordinated fleet of service robots across multiple public venues in Davos, Switzerland, during the Davos Tech Summit 2026. The company is building what it calls "Robot City," a full stack system combining proprietary foundation models, multi scenario hardware, and cloud based fleet management designed to integrate robots seamlessly into human public spaces. This article explains what physical AI fleets are, why they represent the next major leap in commercial automation, how Pudu's approach differs from global competitors like SoftBank Robotics, and what this European deployment signals for the broader embodied AI ecosystem.
Livestock Embodied AI Explained: Why Nuwa Just Launched the ELR Robot to Automate the Barn
An agricultural technology startup has introduced embodied AI to one of the most challenging physical environments on earth: the livestock barn. Nuwa Agri-Tech launched its ELR livestock robot at the China International Equipment Intelligence (CIEI) 2026 expo in Shanghai, standing out as the only company dedicated to animal husbandry among over five hundred exhibitors. The company is building what it calls a comprehensive livestock embodied AI platform, combining autonomous navigation, risk prediction algorithms, and modular physical tools to handle the dangerous and dirty work of farm management. This article explains what livestock embodied AI is, why the agricultural sector faces a critical labor bottleneck, how Nuwa's approach differs from global agricultural giants like John Deere, and what this deployment signals for the broader physical AI ecosystem.
Joint Modules Explained: Why Quanzhibo Just Raised an A+++ Round to Build the Muscle of Physical AI
A three year old hardware startup founded by a thirty three year old engineering PhD has closed its seventh funding round in eighteen months, signaling a massive consolidation in the robotics supply chain. Quanzhibo secured an undisclosed A+++ round led by Hillhouse Capital's GL Ventures, with strategic participation from humanoid developer AgiBot and dexterous hand maker LinkerBot. The company is building high torque robot joint modules, the critical electromechanical "muscles" that power physical AI, and has already shipped over 120,000 units in the first half of 2026. This article explains what joint modules are, why they represent the largest cost bottleneck in humanoid robotics, how Quanzhibo's manufacturing approach differs from global incumbents like Harmonic Drive, and what this funding surge signals for the broader physical AI ecosystem.
Kawasaki Secures $1.2B for Physical AI and Hydrogen R&D
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) has finalized a ¥193.7 billion ($1.2 billion) capital raise to aggressively expand its production capacity and research footprint. Rather than a general corporate cash infusion, the July 2 board resolution specifically targets two critical global bottlenecks: semiconductor manufacturing robotics and the liquefied hydrogen supply chain, backed by deep investments in physical AI. By utilizing a mix of overseas equity and the world's first Climate Transition Bond, Kawasaki is leveraging ESG capital to secure its position against global robotics competitors and ensure supply chain dominance in the next decade of industrial automation.
HuaKe Precision Files for STAR Market IPO with Backing from Medtronic
Beijing HuaKe Precision, the company behind the Sinovation SR1 neurosurgical robot, has filed for an IPO on the Shanghai STAR Market to raise about RMB 1 billion. The filing was accepted on June 30, setting the company up to become China's first pure-play neurosurgical robot stock. HuaKe holds a 53.3 percent share of China's neurosurgical robot market, has systems in more than 400 hospitals, and counts global device giant Medtronic as a 3.12 percent shareholder. For hospital buyers and medical device watchers, the prospectus opens a rare window into the real economics of surgical robotics in China.
Weave Robotics Opens Pre-Orders for Isaac 1 Home Robot: The USD8,000 Bet on Household Automation
Weave Robotics, a San Francisco startup founded in 2024 by two former Apple engineers, has opened pre-orders for Isaac 1, a mobile home robot that folds laundry, makes beds, and tidies clutter. It costs USD8,000 upfront or USD449 per month, with a USD250 deposit and deliveries starting in California this fall. The company already ships its stationary Isaac 0 laundry robot to paying customers, which makes this one of the most credible tests yet of whether households will pay real money for chore automation.
Ukraine's Brave1 Defense Cluster Launches Grant Competition for Armed Humanoid Combat Robots
Ukraine's state defense technology cluster Brave1 has launched a grant competition to develop armed humanoid robots for frontline missions, announced by Brave1 CEO Andriy Hrytsenyuk at the Brave1 Advantage event in Kyiv. The goal is to robotize the first line of combat contact and reduce risks to Ukrainian soldiers. Developers will start with simple humanoid platforms and add more advanced capability over time. Unlike the United States and China, this program is aimed purely at defense scenarios. Ukraine has already tested Foundation's Phantom MK-1 humanoid soldier robots, so this competition formalizes a direction the country has been quietly exploring. For the robotics industry, it is an early signal that humanoids are entering the defense procurement pipeline, with all the funding, ethical, and export control questions that follow.
X Square Robot Launches QUANXTA Zero Series to Build Integrated Embodied Data Production System
X Square Robot has launched the QUANXTA Zero Series, an integrated embodied AI platform that unifies data collection, cleaning, annotation, training and evaluation to address key bottlenecks in robotics data scale, quality and efficiency. The system includes three hardware configurations and an end-to-end software pipeline, with the flagship G1 enabling high-efficiency, synchronized data capture of up to 100 demonstrations per hour and direct conversion of raw data into model training workflows.
ITOCHU Strikes Physical AI Alliance With MAMEZO to Tackle Japan's Robot Labor Gap
ITOCHU has formed a three-way alliance with MAMEZO and CTC to accelerate physical AI deployment across Japan, signaling a broader industrial push to address labor shortages with robotics.
luna 5 min read
World Models Explained: Why Liqing Intelligence Just Raised Hundreds of Millions to Build the 'iOS of Physical AI'
A three-month-old startup founded by a 28-year-old Tsinghua professor has closed one of 2026's most notable seed rounds in China's AI sector. Liqing Intelligence secured several hundred million yuan from an all-star investor roster including Sequoia China, Hillhouse Capital's GL Ventures, and Shunwei Capital. The company is building what it calls 'Physical AI Infrastructure,' a full-stack system combining proprietary data pipelines, a differentiable physics engine, and a native world model designed to train robots across any hardware form factor and any real-world scenario. This article explains what world models are, why they matter across industries from autonomous driving to home robotics, how Liqing's approach differs from global competitors including NVIDIA, Yann LeCun's AMI Labs, and Fei-Fei Li's World Labs, and what the funding surge signals for the broader physical AI ecosystem.
Rokae Robot Lists in Hong Kong: China's Cobot Champion Takes On Global Capital
Chinese collaborative robot maker Rokae Robot with 34% of China's market share on cobot has launched its Hong Kong IPO subscription at HKD 38 per share, with listing expected on July 9 under the 18C specialist technology chapter.
Luxonis Raises 14 Million Dollar Series A to Scale Physical AI Perception Cameras
The Denver startup behind OAK cameras closes its first institutional round after seven years of bootstrapping, backed by NVIDIA, Temasek, and Taiwania Capital