New robots, new capabilities. Tracking what's coming for the workforce.
Robotics The International Federation of Robotics released its World Robotics 2026 report on September 24: China installed 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, up 20% and 59% of the global total, while the EU's installations fell 11% and the US, up 12% to 38,500 units, passed Japan into second place worldwide.
Robotics Boston Dynamics opened a permanent Atlas training center at Hyundai's Georgia Metaplant on September 21. The first task is arranging car parts in assembly order. Next year the site grows roughly tenfold, and data collection moves out to aerospace, semiconductor and logistics customers.
Robotics Samsung formed a permanent AX/PI team on September 1 inside its semiconductor division to build robots for fab maintenance. The first job category named: contractors and on-site engineers.
Robotics Universal Robots launched its seventh-generation platform at IMTS in Chicago on September 14: three higher-payload arms, a controller with 40% more compute in a 30% smaller box, and a tool flange that carries data, power and safety signals all the way to the wrist.
Robotics China's National Data Administration said it will develop standards for embodied-AI data, ten days after seven companies asked it for exactly that. CAICT estimates these models need roughly 10 million hours of real-world data. Between 100,000 and 1 million hours exist worldwide.
Robotics Samsung SDS entered the robot transformation business on September 8 with a 2027 orchestration platform. The load-bearing number is 430: the manufacturing clients already on its books.
Robotics A KOSDAQ disclosure on September 7 does what almost no automation contract does: it names the work. Busbar feeding, heat-staking, laser welding, electrical test, weld vision inspection, chained into one line.
Robotics Lumos Robotics launched the MOS 2 on September 1. The load-bearing number is not the payload. It is the 1,000 failure-free hours the previous model logged on a live PLC line at Mitsubishi Electric's Changshu plant, after which Mitsubishi led the funding round.
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 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 Xiaomi's Q2 results on August 18 listed three named workstations in its own EV plant and the humanoid's success rate at each. On the same call, president Lu Weibing said the robot will not be sold as a standalone product.
Robotics LG and NVIDIA signed an MOU at NVIDIA's Santa Clara headquarters on August 13. The humanoid got the headline. The wheeled CLOiD got the deployment date, and it lands in a plant already running 200 mobile robots.