Physical AI & robotics news
- · Industry
Nikkei xTECH publishes article on home service robot trial
Nikkei xTECH published an article under the Nikkei Robotics banner about a trial of a service robot in a home.
- · Partnerships & M&A
NVIDIA Agrees to Acquire Hugging Face
NVIDIA announced in a blog post that it had agreed to acquire Hugging Face for $12.9303 billion.
- · Funding
Humanoid raises $152 million in Series A
British robotics company Humanoid announced it raised $152 million in a Series A round, giving it a post-money valuation of $1.35 billion.
- · Product launches
General Robotics Announces Use of AI
Forbes reported publishing an article about a Nvidia-backed robotics platform. The article described how General Robotics is using AI. It was published on September 9, 2026.
- · Research & technology
Hitachi Construction Machinery Starts R&D on Physical AI to Learn Hydraulic Excavator Operations
The research aims to teach the system lever operations based on camera footage and work instructions so it can make and execute decisions suited to each situation.
- · Industry
Unitree Robotics Releases G1 Freestyle Boxing Video
Unitree Robotics released a video of the G1 humanoid robot freestyle boxing on Sept. 7. The 38-second video was filmed in real time, with no acceleration applied throughout, the company said.
- · Tenders
FastLabel Selected for NEDO National Project “GENIAC”
FastLabel has been selected for “Research and Development of Robot Foundation Models (GENIAC),” a national project run by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NEDO. The company announced its selection in a public statement. Publicly available information does not specify the development scale or project period for this selection.
- · Deployment & production
Toshima Ward, Tokyo, launches trial of AI monitoring system and security robot at ward office
Toshima Ward, Tokyo, has begun a trial of an AI monitoring system and security robot, the first such trial at a ward office in Tokyo’s 23 wards. The trial is taking place at the ward office and incorporates robots into security and monitoring work at a public facility. Publicly available information on the trial’s specifications is limited, leaving its scope of operation and evaluation criteria as issues to watch.
- · Policy & regulation
Atom Selected for GENIAC Robot Foundation Model R&D Project
Atom has been selected for the GENIAC robot foundation model research and development project, led by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry and NEDO. The project targets foundation models for humanoid AI robots and aims to build a deployment base for domestically developed physical AI. The announcement follows Atom’s recent moves to establish a development hub and collaborate with other companies.
- · Product launches
Renesas Opens Physical AI and Robotics Lab in Beijing, China
Renesas announced on Aug. 27, 2026, that it had opened a Physical AI & Robotics Lab in Beijing, China. The lab is positioned to support proof-of-concept work, validation and co-development for next-generation robotics, from proof of concept through large-scale deployment. The company says its products cover about 30% of the bill of materials (BOM) for humanoid robots and believes it can expand that coverage to 70%.
- · Product launches
AgiBot unveils GE-Act 2.0, testing real-robot zero-shot performance from 300 to 30,000 hours of data
Zhiyuan Innovation (Shanghai) Technology Co., Ltd. unveiled its native World Action Model, GE-Act 2.0, on Sept. 9. The company said it trained the model on embodied data at four scales, from 300 to 30,000 hours, and conducted real-robot zero-shot evaluations across 100 atomic tasks, 20 skill categories and two robot platforms. It said the larger data sets enabled fine-grained actions such as folding towels and nesting paper cups, demonstrating the scalability of pretraining that handles world prediction and action control simultaneously.
- · Funding
More Than $5 Million in Insider Buying of Uber Stock
Forbes reported about $5 million in insider buying of Uber stock. The article covered the development amid activity surrounding Uber’s robotaxi efforts.
- · Product launches
ANYbotics unveils autonomous workforce vision for process industries, conducting hundreds of thousands of inspections a month
ANYbotics on September 9, 2026, unveiled its “ANYbotics Manifesto,” a vision for an autonomous workforce for process industries. The company said it conducts hundreds of thousands of autonomous inspections a month and outlined an approach that integrates Physical AI, Industrial AI and Workflow Integration. Its business focus is not robots alone, but an operational platform that connects inspection data to maintenance work.
- · Product launches
Cerence AI’s Emergency Vehicle Detection Technology Used in Autonomous Bus Demonstration
Cerence AI announced that its emergency vehicle detection technology, Cerence Emergency Vehicle Detection, has been adopted for an autonomous bus platform being developed by Toyota Conic Pro.
- · Partnerships & M&A
Figure, Nscale Form Strategic Partnership
Figure announced a strategic partnership with Nscale to deploy up to 100,000 GPUs based on NVIDIA Vera Rubin. Initial deployment is scheduled to begin in the second half of 2027 in Barstow, Texas, with an initial commitment of $3.5 billion.
- · Industry
UK's Arm Announces Physical AI Coalition
Nikkei reported that Arm launched a coalition focused on physical AI. It said more than 80 companies are participating.
- · Industry
Forbes Publishes Article on UK Humanoid Robotics Company
Forbes published an article about a UK humanoid robotics startup.
- · Research & technology
Physical Intelligence Reports Initial Solutions to Robot Olympics Challenges
Physical Intelligence said in a Dec. 22 blog post that it fine-tuned π0.6 to tackle Robot Olympics challenges.
- · Partnerships & M&A
Qualcomm and Amazon Announce Collaboration for AI Data Centers
Qualcomm said Sept. 8 that it would begin a multigenerational collaboration with Amazon on custom semiconductors and optical connectivity technology for AI data centers.
- · Research & technology
Scalabot Introduces HERON-World Model
Robot Lecture Hall reported that the Scalabot team introduced HERON-World Model. The article said the model scored 75.80 on EWMScore_P in an offline evaluation.
- · Tenders
Cuebus selected for MLIT automated logistics road demonstration; multi-unit autonomous driving to be tested at Narita Airport
Cuebus was selected for the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism’s “Fiscal 2026 Demonstration Experiment Toward the Social Implementation of Automated Logistics Roads.” Using facilities at Narita International Airport, the project will test autonomous driving by multiple transport units. The experiment will be conducted with Chiba Prefecture, Narita International Airport Corp., Obayashi Corp. and NTT DATA Corp. It appears to extend existing three-dimensional robotic warehouse technology into operational testing that links airport logistics with trunk logistics.
- · Research & technology
Witz research project selected for Go-Tech program
The Nikkei reported that Witz was selected for a research project under the Go-Tech program.
- · Industry
China’s military humanoid robots remain in engineering validation, report says
leaderobot.com published an article saying military humanoid robots are still in the engineering validation stage.
- · Research & technology
leaderobot.com reports on VISTEC-related robotics research
On September 8, 2026, leaderobot.com reported on hexapod robot research by an international team from Japan’s Tohoku University and Thailand’s VISTEC Research Institute. The article covers a learning method for adapting to changes in terrain, drawing on the walking of stick insects. The focus is an introduction to the research; readers should consult the original source for details.
- · Industry
Fighting Robots Draw Attention at IFA 2026
In an article published Sept. 8, 2026, leaderobot.com reported that fighting robots stood out at IFA 2026 in Berlin.
- · Product launches
GMO AI & Robotics Trading Launches New Service
GMO AI & Robotics Trading has launched GMO LOOP for Physical AI, a service designed to improve humanoid robots’ motion accuracy.
- · Industry
leaderobot.com publishes article discussing robots as a service
On September 8, 2026, leaderobot.com published an article discussing robots as a service. The article examines technical similarities and differences between cars and robots, as well as the shift from ownership to service use.
- · Research & technology
Astribot Team Announces SmoothRL Online Reinforcement Learning Framework, Validates It on Real Robots
The Astribot team announced SmoothRL, an online reinforcement learning framework. The team said it validated the framework on an embodied robot in real-world tests, confirming improved success rates on three tasks: dynamic throwing, attaching a cap to a pen and opening a box. The focus is how to implement a design that allows robots to keep learning during operation.
- · Deployment & production
Restaurant Robots Expand Into Real-World Operations
A Chinese industry media outlet reported that restaurant robots are moving beyond exhibition-focused settings and into real-world operations.
- · Partnerships & M&A
Aster teams up with AKARI as drone demand surges tenfold, Nikkei reports
The Nikkei reported on September 8, 2026, that demand for Aster’s drones had grown tenfold. The newspaper also reported that Aster would team up with AKARI. However, the excerpt confirms only limited facts, and the details of the business remain unclear.