Robotics & Automation

Fanuc is integrating Nvidia's simulation and inference platforms across its industrial robot portfolio while committing $90 million to a new 840,000-square-foot Michigan facility, positioning the world's largest robot maker to meet surging North American demand for AI-driven factory automation.

Carbon Robotics tops $100M in revenue, Solinftec deploys 100-plus autonomous sprayers across U.S. farms, and Ecorobotix sells its 1,000th precision unit as agricultural robots enter commercial scale.

Renault Group will deploy 350 Calvin-40 humanoid robots built by French startup Wandercraft across its manufacturing facilities within 18 months, beginning at its Douai EV plant where the headless bipedal machines are already hauling tires and panels on the production line.

NVIDIA released GR00T-H at GTC 2026, a 3-billion-parameter vision-language-action model for surgical robots trained on the Open-H dataset of 778 hours of procedure recordings from 35 institutions and seven robotic platforms, with CMR Surgical contributing nearly 500 hours from its Versius system.

A fleet of 100 Huaneng Ruichi battery-electric haul trucks at an Inner Mongolia coal mine has operated autonomously for ten months, setting records for payload, speed, and cold-weather endurance while cutting 48,000 tonnes of CO2 annually and replacing 300 diesel trucks.

A $2.1 billion Navy program has drawn at least a dozen competitors to build autonomous warships, while commercial shipping firms deploy AI navigation on thousands of vessels and the IMO targets May 2026 for its first autonomous shipping code.

ICON launched its Titan program on March 11, letting builders buy its robotic 3D printing system for $899,000, while California's first 3D-printed housing community nears completion in Yuba County.

DHL Supply Chain and Locus Robotics completed their one billionth autonomous warehouse pick, while DHL's new SOFTBOT platform enables robotic integration 12 times faster across 30 sites with plans to expand to 100.

The DOD orders 30,000 small attack drones at $5,000 each from 11 vendors — including a British company that topped the leaderboard — as the first phase of a $1 billion program to field 300,000 domestically produced combat drones by 2027.

Boston Dynamics and Ghost Robotics report surging demand for quadruped robots at data centers, where Spot and Vision 60 units now patrol perimeters, detect thermal anomalies, and slash security costs as the US races to build more than 800 new facilities.

Tesla showcased its third-generation Optimus humanoid robot at AWE 2026 in Shanghai, as the company prepares to convert its Fremont factory lines for robot production and aims to begin public sales by end of 2027.

Rivian spinout Mind Robotics raises $500M Series A led by Accel and a16z at $2B valuation, challenging humanoid robot trend with AI-powered industrial automation.