Silicon Valley spent the previous couple of years instructing AI to speak. Now it needs to present AI a physique to raise, kind, construct, and ultimately stay alongside us.
This weekend supplied a glimpse of how rapidly the largest AI gamers are transferring in on humanoid robotics. At Nvidia GTC Taipei, the corporate announced a normal humanoid robotic blueprint for tutorial researchers, anticipated to be out there in late 2026.
On Sunday, Sam Altman declared robotics the corporate’s subsequent frontier and made a callout for expertise.
“Within the quick time period, we’re centered on robots to help expert staff to construct our future infrastructure; in the long run, we think about everybody having a private robotic doing something they want,” Altman wrote on X.
Robotics has grow to be tech’s newest arms race, with Nvidia, OpenAI, Meta, Tesla, and a flock of startups racing to present AI a physique. Corporations and analysis labs are racing to construct humanoids, specialised robots, and the software program brains that might assist them navigate the actual world.
“Bodily AI” is the buzzword of the second within the Valley, a time period popularized by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to explain AI techniques that may act within the bodily world.
One of many buzziest Silicon Valley robotics upstarts, Determine AI, has been making an attempt to show its know-how can transfer from demos to actual work. The startup, most lately valued at $39 billion, had its humanoids tag-team per week of package deal sorting that drew millions of viewers in May. Weeks later, the corporate signed a business settlement with Catalyst Manufacturers, the dad or mum firm of JCPenney, Aéropostale, and Brooks Brothers, to deploy humanoids in its distribution and logistics community.
Within the battle to make robots a actuality, firms are scooping up prime robotics expertise, elevating large enterprise rounds, and turning robotic demos into viral on-line spectacles — from robotic palms playing the piano to humanoids sorting packages.
Enterprise capital funding in world robotics and bodily AI has grown from round $4 billion in 2019 to $26 billion in 2025, in accordance with PitchBook information. Thus far this yr, firms within the area have raised greater than $23 billion.
‘A multitrillion-dollar financial alternative’
Nvidia’s newest enterprise into robotics combines a robotic physique from Unitree, a Chinese language robotics firm, five-fingered palms, Nvidia onboard computing, and software program instruments, so researchers shouldn’t have to sew every little thing collectively from scratch. Nvidia mentioned it’s launching the design as demand for general-purpose humanoids accelerates and researchers nonetheless face a fragmented course of for constructing and testing them.
“Humanoid robots will convey bodily AI to the world’s largest industries, opening a multitrillion-dollar financial alternative,” Huang mentioned.
Jade GAO / AFP through Getty Pictures
OpenAI can also be ramping up its funding in robotics, a pointy reversal from 2020, when the corporate shuttered the challenge behind a robotic hand that could solve a Rubik’s Cube. The workforce is instructing a robotic arm how you can carry out family duties as a part of an effort to construct a humanoid robotic, Enterprise Insider reported earlier this yr. OpenAI at present has job openings for a number of roles in its robotics lab, together with machine studying engineers, information acquisition managers, and 3D printing technicians.
Meta, too, is bolstering its robotics efforts. Final month, the corporate acquired humanoid robotics startup Assured Robotic Intelligence for an undisclosed sum. The startup was constructing AI fashions for humanoid robots, and its workforce joined Meta’s AI unit, Superintelligence Labs.
The large wildcard is Tesla. Elon Musk has repeatedly described Optimus as central to Tesla’s future, however the firm has disclosed few particulars in regards to the humanoid robotic’s progress. Musk mentioned on the World Financial Discussion board earlier this yr that Tesla would most likely promote Optimus robots to the general public by the tip of 2027 and that the robots had been already doing easy duties at Tesla’s factories.
Hyundai-owned Boston Dynamics can also be pushing towards industrial use, with Hyundai planning to deploy tens of 1000’s of Atlas humanoids in its factories by 2028. Agility Robotics is additional alongside in business deployments. Its Digit humanoid has been deployed with clients together with Amazon, GXO, Schaeffler, and Mercado Libre.
