#robotics

Russ Tedrake, MIT roboticist and former SVP at Toyota Research Institute, will publicly unveil a stealth AI startup at the Robotics Summit in May with a focus on physical AI for adaptive robots.

Palladyne AI has successfully integrated its SwarmOS platform with Draganfly's drone hardware in a simulation trial that demonstrated coordinated autonomous flight across multiple vehicles, marking a significant step toward next-generation defense swarm applications.

South Korean company Tesollo has introduced the DG-5F-S, a five-finger robotic hand with 20 degrees of freedom designed for humanoid robots, offering human-scale dexterity in a package weighing under 900 grams.

At GTC 2026, Nvidia announced major expansions to its physical AI platform, with autonomous vehicles launching in Los Angeles through an Uber partnership, FANUC and ABB industrial robots getting Nvidia brains, and new foundation models targeting humanoid robotics.

The Allen Institute for AI has demonstrated that robots trained in virtual simulations can transfer that learning to real-world manipulation tasks, offering a cheaper and more scalable alternative to expensive manual data collection.

BMW has begun deploying humanoid robots on the production floor of its German manufacturing facilities, marking one of the highest-profile integrations of bipedal robots into a major automotive assembly operation.

As humanoid robots approach commercial deployment, developers face a difficult challenge: the form factor promises versatility across industries, but no single vertical provides enough volume to justify development costs alone.

Travis Kalanick, who built and was ousted from Uber, has pivoted his real estate technology company into a robotics venture — and published a manifesto positioning physical automation as the next platform shift.

BMW has begun deploying commercial humanoid robots in operational roles at a German manufacturing plant, marking a milestone in the commercialization of general-purpose robotics for automotive production.

Uber's founder Travis Kalanick has launched a new company called Atoms, absorbing his CloudKitchens ghost kitchen venture and expanding into robotics, mining, and transportation automation.

MassRobotics, NVIDIA, and AWS have named the nine Physical AI Fellowship startups in their second cohort, providing mentorship, cloud computing resources, and industry connections to early-stage companies building AI-powered physical systems.

UK-based Oxa has closed a Series D funding round to scale its configurable autonomous driving software platform, which can be deployed across more than 20 different industrial vehicle types for ports, airports, and manufacturing facilities.

After decades of conventional automation, manufacturers are adopting physical AI—systems that perceive, reason, and act in physical environments—as the next leap in factory productivity, driven by labor constraints and rising operational complexity.

Rhoda AI has emerged from stealth mode with $450 million in funding and a system that trains robots to perform real-world tasks by watching video demonstrations.

Scientists modeled a lamprey's oral disc to build a suction cup that grips wet, rough, and curved surfaces with record-breaking force.

Plug-and-play AI modules let robots acquire new capabilities without full retraining, accelerating deployment across industries.

Caitlin Kalinowski resigned from OpenAI over concerns about the company's agreement to let the Pentagon use its AI for domestic surveillance without judicial oversight.

A new architecture called LatentVLA argues that natural language may not be the best abstraction for autonomous driving, proposing latent reasoning models instead.

From factory floors to warehouses, physical AI is emerging as the next frontier as nations and corporations compete to build intelligent robots.

Alphabet subsidiary Intrinsic, which spun out in 2021 to develop AI-powered robotics software, is being folded back into Google. The move signals Google's growing ambition in 'physical AI' — systems that can perceive, reason about, and manipulate the real world.