BMW Group has deployed Figure AI’s Figure 03 humanoid robot at its Spartanburg plant for a logistics sequencing application, following the successful 11-month Figure 02 deployment that supported production of 30,000 BMW X3 vehicles, as the company expands its humanoid program from body shop to assembly logistics.
Goldman Sachs Research estimates Korean companies will account for 30% of global humanoid robot production by 2035 through direct manufacturing and component supply, with Korean supply chains supporting approximately 74,000 units by 2030, driven by automotive parts expertise translating directly into actuator and dexterous hand capability.
Morgan Stanley has raised its China humanoid robot shipment forecast to 50,000 units for 2026, nearly doubling its previous projection of 28,000, as commercial verification in factories, logistics, and retail accelerates faster than the bank anticipated at the start of the year.
Agility Robotics has announced a merger with Churchill Capital Corp XI to go public at a $2.5 billion valuation, providing more than $620 million in proceeds to fund commercial expansion of its Digit humanoid robot, backed by over $300 million in existing orders for a new Digit version.
Bear Robotics has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Kinisi Robotics, adding the KR1 humanoid robot and its vision-language-action manipulation models to Bear’s existing fleet of more than 16,000 deployed service robots, completing what the company describes as an end-to-end physical AI platform.
JD.com founder Richard Liu said at the APEC China CEO Forum that robots will replace the company’s 700,000 delivery workers “sooner or later”, pairing the prediction with a retraining program called Nirvana that aims to move couriers into robot maintenance and AI training roles before automation arrives.
U.S. industrial robot installations grew 11% year-on-year to 38,000 units in 2025, according to the International Federation of Robotics, with food industry adoption surging 30% as the country climbs to eighth globally in robot density – still roughly ten times behind China’s annual installation pace.
NVIDIA has announced Halos for Robotics, the industry’s first full-stack safety architecture for physical AI systems, drawing on 18,600 engineering years of autonomous vehicle safety development, with Agility Robotics integrating it into Digit as the first commercial humanoid deployment.
CYBERDYNE and Pegasus Tech Ventures have launched a JPY 10 billion ($60 million) corporate venture capital fund to invest in startups developing robotics, physical AI, healthcare, and intelligent systems, with CYBERDYNE as the sole limited partner and Pegasus managing the fund as general partner.
D-Link has publicly confirmed its entry into robotics for the first time, establishing a dedicated subsidiary focused on AI therapeutic robots with software and platform services rather than hardware, targeting initial shipments exceeding 100,000 units in Q2 2027.
Genesis AI and LG CNS have announced a long-term strategic partnership to evaluate and deploy Genesis’s Eno general-purpose robot and GENE AI foundation model across LG Group manufacturing and logistics operations in the U.S., with global expansion planned.
LG Electronics is converting its 33,000 square-meter Yangjae R&D campus into Korea’s first humanoid robot data factory, deploying up to 300 CLOiD prototype robots by year-end to generate real-world training data for a commercial home robot targeted for 2028.
Neura Robotics has closed a Series C round of up to $1.4 billion led by Tether, the stablecoin issuer behind USDT, with Tether also planning to integrate its Wallet Development Kit directly into Neura’s robotic systems as the companies argue autonomous robots need financial tools.
Addverb Technologies, backed by Reliance Industries and currently ranked outside the global top 30 in robotics by revenue, is raising more than $100 million to develop humanoid and quadruped robots, build AI training systems, and expand internationally as it targets a top-10 global ranking within five years.
Standard Bots has raised $200 million in a Series C co-led by General Catalyst and RoboStrategy at a $1 billion valuation, funding expansion of its Glen Cove, New York factory and a target of delivering 10% of all new U.S. industrial robot deployments within the year.