New robots, new capabilities. Tracking what's coming for the workforce.
Robotics NSF named three new Science and Technology Centers on August 26. One goes to UT Austin to study what happens when assistive robots move into nursing homes, rehab hospitals, dorms and cafés. The new thing is not the money. It is the opt-out.
Robotics The number worth reading in the August 27 report is not $6B. It is where SoftBank's robot money has moved in eight weeks: out of the most famous robot company on earth, into driverless excavators, and now into a house robot whose chores are staffed.
Robotics Universal Robots' parent filed patent infringement against JAKA's German subsidiary at the UPC's Copenhagen division on August 27, targeting a broad range of cobot models sold in the EU. Four months ago the same playbook won an injunction in Hamburg.
Robotics Bedrock Robotics said on August 26 that its autonomous excavators are running on three live jobsites in Texas and Nevada with no operator in the seat. Mastering an excavator typically takes five years, and the tasks the machine has taken over are the first part of those five.
Robotics Under the draft, when full autonomy is switched on, the manufacturer handles the violation. The seat stops needing someone qualified to receive it.
Robotics Figure moved the training-data step off the payroll and onto a bounty sheet. Index took four months to collect 16 million uploads from 44,000 weekly contributors, has paid out $15M, and has $1B committed for the next 12 months.
Robotics Autonomous driving money went to robotaxis and long-haul rigs. Gatik took the leg between the distribution centre and the store, the dullest and most repeatable run on the map.
Robotics XPeng named a valuation for its humanoid business on August 24, alongside Q2 earnings. The number to read isn't $6.3B. It's where the money sends IRON to work: the showroom floor, not the plant floor.
Robotics Two robots beat the human world record over 100 meters in Beijing on August 23. One veered into a padded barrier past the line, the other fell and was carried off on a stretcher. The rule worth reading: the record events are the only two excused from running autonomously.
Robotics The games opened August 22 and moved the scenario events into a working hotel and a real apartment. The household contest is scored out of 300: living room 75, folded clothes 100, laundry 125. One human intervention and the entire run settles as remote control, weighted 0.5 against 1.
Robotics A CAICT report surfaced on August 21 puts more than 70 embodied-AI training grounds in operation across China by the end of June, with 46 more under construction or planned. Industrial manufacturing appears in 86% of them.
Robotics The 2026 Humanoid Robot Industry Development Report landed on the World Robot Conference main stage on August 20 with a headline figure: more than 40,000 units shipped in China in the first half, 97% of the global total. Elsewhere that same 40,000 is called production, not shipments.