Physical AI & robotics news
- · Partnerships & M&A
Teradyne Robotics and Sereact to bring AI to retail and logistics with Cortex and cobots
Teradyne Robotics and Sereact announced a partnership in physical AI on October 21, 2026. The companies will run Sereact’s Cortex on Universal Robots arms, targeting tasks such as returns processing and piece picking. They also outlined a framework spanning training, hardware evaluation and on-site inference.
- · Industry
AgiBot reportedly sets record for simultaneous dance by 110 humanoid robots
Humanoid.Guide reported that 110 AgiBot humanoid robots set a Guinness World Record for simultaneous dancing. The record demonstrated coordinated group movement using control and positioning systems. It should be distinguished from achievements demonstrating sustained operation or task performance in industrial settings.
- · Industry
UCLA RoMeLa’s PhoneBot Reported as Bipedal Robot Controlled by Older Smartphone
PhoneBot is a 48.3-centimeter-tall, 1.8-kilogram bipedal robot with 13 joints, leaderobot.com reported. It uses a smartphone mounted externally as a controller, sending movement commands to a board inside the robot over Wi-Fi. The report says hardware costs $400, excluding the smartphone.
- · Product launches
Unitree develops ‘Rehearsal’ to help improve humanoid skills
Unitree Robotics is reportedly developing Unitree Rehearsal, a system to help improve humanoid skills. The concept combines research paper searches, code generation, simulation and real-world testing. Reports also said the company already uses real-world test results to adjust models.
- · Deployment & production
Sankei Shimbun Publishes Article on Railway Maintenance Robots
Sankei Shimbun published an article about physical AI and robot-assisted facility maintenance and inspections in the railway industry.
- · Product launches
Humanoid.Guide Publishes Article on A3 Ultra
Humanoid.Guide published an article about AGIBOT’s humanoid robot, the A3 Ultra.
- · Product launches
humanoid.guide publishes article on Linker Hand O30
humanoid.guide published an article about LinkerBot’s robotic hand, the Linker Hand O30.
- · Deployment & production
Tesla Says Austin Cybercabs Top 300
Tesla announced on X that the number of Cybercabs in Austin had grown about eightfold in 30 days, topping 300, jidounten-lab reported.
- · Research & technology
Researchers Create Dataset of Human Activities for Robot Learning
Researchers from Shanghai AI Laboratory, Zhejiang University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University compiled a 100-hour dataset documenting human activities. The recordings combine wearer-perspective video with reconstructed body movements, finger movements and tactile data. The report describes the data collection method; it does not establish the dataset’s learning benefits or performance in real-world environments.
- · Product launches
Dyna Robotics’ Wheeled Semihumanoid Taku Features 21 Degrees of Freedom in Its Upper Body and Object-Manipulation Capabilities
humanoid.guide featured Dyna Robotics’ wheeled semihumanoid Taku. The robot is 170 centimeters tall, with 21 degrees of freedom in its upper body. Its grip force is listed as 10 kilograms. In the review, its object manipulation was rated higher than its mobility.
- · Funding
Eka Robotics Raises $150 Million to Develop VFA Model
Eka Robotics raised $150 million in a Series A round. The company is developing a VFA model that combines vision, force and action. The company says its robots can manipulate objects outside the training distribution about 1,500 times per hour.
- · Research & technology
DEEP Robotics unveils five embodied intelligence research results, outlines overall architecture including world model
leaderobot.com reported on Oct. 24, 2026, that DEEP Robotics had unveiled five research results in embodied intelligence. The company positioned its results in world models, foundation models, agents, policy optimization and data closed loops within its “DEEPRobotics-Brain.” The report provided details on the world model, saying it incorporates physical properties and was pretrained on 2.58 million images and more than 100,000 videos captured by real robots.
- · Industry
Nikkei Highlights Five Noteworthy Articles
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun introduced five noteworthy articles from NIKKEI Tech Foresight.
- · Deployment & production
Waymo Begins Preparations in Toronto
Waymo said it has begun preparing to launch its autonomous ride-hailing service in Toronto, Canada, and plans to welcome its first passengers in 2028.
- · Product launches
NVIDIA Opens FOX Early Access for European Manufacturers; Siemens and Mercedes-Benz Put It to Use
On Oct. 21, NVIDIA published examples of European industrial companies using CUDA-X, Omniverse, Cosmos and Nemotron across their operations. The centerpiece is the early-access release of the Factory Operations Blueprint (FOX) on GitHub, which outlines a way to build always-on management agents that operate throughout a factory. Siemens has integrated FOX-based agents into Intelligence Center X and expects an estimated 20% cost reduction. Mercedes-Benz, Audi, Schaeffler and Volkswagen Sachsen, among others, are combining NVIDIA platforms for design, inspection, digital twins and robot validation. However, each company’s deployment is tailored to specific use cases, and the scale of mass production and broader commercial rollout will need to be assessed as each project progresses.
- · Industry
Bloomberg reports link between teal road lights and autonomous vehicles
Bloomberg reported that teal lights on roads could indicate autonomous vehicles. Public information alone does not confirm specific deployment locations or operating conditions. The original article must be consulted for detailed issues.
- · Industry
Canton Fair Sets Up Dedicated Service Robot Zone
Robotics and Automation News reported that a dedicated service robot zone was established in the first phase of the Canton Fair’s “Advanced Manufacturing” program.
- · Research & technology
NVIDIA Uses AI Agents to Help Microduck Learn to Walk in Simulation
NVIDIA introduced an approach that uses AI agents in simulation to teach robots such as Microduck to walk.
- · Product launches
Hikrobot rolls out “Mingzhi” series of logistics robots for standalone deployment, leaderobot.com reports
leaderobot.com reported on Hikrobot’s “Mingzhi” series as a line of standalone intelligent logistics robots. The robots can localize, map and execute tasks independently, and the article says they can be operational in as little as 30 minutes. The key question is whether companies can begin automating localized transport needs without first installing a broader system.
- · Deployment & production
15 Humanoid Robots in Regular Operation at Hangzhou Factory
According to Cailian Press, 15 humanoid robots are regularly used for loading operations at Zhaofeng Co.'s Hangzhou factory.
- · Product launches
Generative Bionics announces plan to build European “physical AI data factory” for humanoids, adopts AMD platform
Generative Bionics announced plans to develop a three-site European network of “Physical AI Data Factory” facilities to train physical AI for humanoids. The first site will be a 5,000-square-meter facility in Italy, scheduled to begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2027. AMD will support real-world data processing, model training and parallel digital twin simulations through its Helios rack-scale platform.
- · Product launches
Report: OpenAI signals timing for humanoid robot reveal
leaderobot.com reported on October 23, 2026, that OpenAI had signaled when it would unveil a humanoid robot.
- · Funding
Futaba Corporation to Bring Homura Heavy Industries Into Group, With 91.9% Stake
prtimes.jp reported on October 23, 2026, under the headline “Futaba Corporation to Bring Homura Heavy Industries Into Group, With 91.9% Stake.”
- · Industry
Nikkei Business Digital Edition Reports on 'Physical AI: Factory Revolution'
Nikkei Business Digital Edition published '[Video] Physical AI: Factory Revolution — Linking “Knowledge” to Compete with China.'
- · Deployment & production
Zhiyuan Puts Lingxi X2 Into Regular Service at Chengdu’s Kuanzhai Alley, Deploys 3 Robots
Zhiyuan Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd. said it will operate its Lingxi X2 humanoid robots on a regular basis at Chengdu’s Kuanzhai Alley in partnership with Chengdu Culture and Tourism Group. The company said it deployed 3 robots and formed a dedicated team to handle three services: greeting and inquiries, cultural explanations, and convenience retail. The company said this is the first regular service operation of its kind in a major cultural-tourism district nationwide, emphasizing a “deployment mode” for cultural-tourism sites.
- · Product launches
AGIBOT to unveil seven new products at AI WAVE; G2 to undergo 24-hour convenience-store test starting Nov. 2
AGIBOT Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd. announced Oct. 22 that it would unveil seven items in succession as part of AI WAVE: a data set, an operations platform, a robot, an agent framework, a simulation platform, a foundation model and a collective experience learning paradigm. From Nov. 2 to 3, it will deploy six G2 robots at an operating convenience store for a 24-hour livestreamed on-the-job test. The company says practical deployment of physical AI requires full-stack coordination among robots, models, data, tools and systems, rather than performance at a single point.
- · Product launches
AgiBot Announces Embodied AI Operations Platform Genie Studio 2.0
AgiBot announced its embodied AI operations platform Genie Studio 2.0 on October 23.
- · Funding
Report on SoftBank’s expanding robot investments
leaderobot.com published an article on Oct. 23, 2026, summarizing SoftBank Group’s Masayoshi Son’s moves in robot-related investments.
- · Product launches
NVIDIA Expands Isaac, Releases Robotics Learning Platform and Datasets
NVIDIA announced an expansion of its robotics development platform, Isaac, on October 21, 2026. It is offering more than 2,000 simulation assets, a human motion dataset and a learning framework. The company outlined a development pipeline linking data generation, simulation, training and deployment on physical robots.
- · Product launches
NVIDIA Adds Training, Evaluation and Deployment Tools for World Models to Cosmos
On October 22, NVIDIA expanded Cosmos, its platform for world models, adding training tools, simulation checkpoints and blueprints for Cosmos Data Factory. The setup brings data generation, training, evaluation and deployment together on one platform. NVIDIA also highlighted examples of use by Porsche, ANYbotics, Ultralytics, MicroAGI and ADNOC. The focus is less on model performance itself than on shortening the data creation and validation processes needed to develop physical AI.