Robotics & Automation

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.

Uber launched Motional IONIQ 5 robotaxis in Las Vegas on March 13 and announced a strategic partnership with Amazon-backed Zoox two days earlier, accelerating a multi-partner platform strategy now spanning more than 25 AV companies.

Sunday raised $165 million at a $1.15 billion valuation to deploy its household robot Memo to homes by Thanksgiving 2026, using a novel low-cost data capture approach.

Kalanick rebrands City Storage Systems as Atoms, absorbing CloudKitchens and acquiring autonomous-driving startup Pronto to build purpose-built industrial robots.

BMW Group has begun deploying Hexagon Robotics' AEON humanoid robot at its Leipzig plant, marking the first time a humanoid robot has entered automotive production in Germany, following a Spartanburg pilot where Figure AI's robot moved 90,000 components across 1,250 operating hours.

Palo Alto startup Rhoda AI emerged from 18 months of stealth with a $450 million Series A at a $1.7 billion valuation, unveiling a robotics intelligence platform trained on hundreds of millions of internet videos.

The DOT and FAA chose eight state-led eVTOL pilot programs covering 26 states, enabling companies like Joby, Archer, and BETA Technologies to begin passenger and cargo air taxi operations as early as summer 2026.

Professor Prokar Dasgupta operated a robotic system from The London Clinic to remove a prostate in Gibraltar with only 60 milliseconds of latency, marking the UK's first telesurgery and Europe's longest-distance remote operation.

German startup Neura Robotics raises €1 billion led by Tether Holdings, becoming Europe's most valuable humanoid robotics company as cryptocurrency profits flow into physical AI.