Chinese robotics company Unitree has unveiled the GD01, the world's first mass-produced manned mecha. A human pilot can board and operate the large-scale robotic suit - the first time the science fiction concept has crossed into commercial mass production.
Carnegie Mellon University and the Bosch Center for AI developed HTD (Humanoid Transformer with Touch Dreaming), which trains robots to anticipate future tactile signals. Across five dexterous real-world tasks, HTD achieved 90.9% higher success rates over vision-only baselines.
The Allen Institute for AI released MolmoAct 2 on May 5, a fully open-source 7B-parameter robot foundation model that surpasses Physical Intelligence's π0.5 across simulation and real-world tasks, achieving up to 87.1% success on zero-shot manipulation.
A Morgan Stanley research note projects China's humanoid robot output will expand its global manufacturing share from 15% to 16.5% by 2030, with Unitree Robotics targeting up to 20,000 units this year — echoing China's earlier dominance in EVs.
A new Boston Dynamics Atlas demonstration video topped 4,000 upvotes on r/singularity, showcasing the robot's latest dynamic movement capabilities and reigniting excitement about humanoid robotics.
Engineer Aaed Musa has released CARA 2.0, an improved open-source quadruped robot dog featuring better kinematics, joint design, and real-time control over the original version.
Meta closed the acquisition of Assured Robot Intelligence (ARI) on May 1, targeting the $5 trillion humanoid robotics market with an Android-style strategy: own the AI layer, let manufacturers build the machines.
Inspired by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, a software engineer proposes three inverse laws governing human behavior when interacting with AI — covering anthropomorphism, blind trust, and accountability.
Figure AI announced its BotQ facility now produces one Figure 03 humanoid robot per hour, up from one per day in January 2026—a 24-fold throughput increase in under four months, with over 350 units delivered.
SoftBank is creating a new AI and robotics company called Roze and targeting a $100 billion valuation in a U.S. IPO as early as late 2026. The company will automate data center construction using robotics and will incorporate ABB Robotics.
Wired analyzes Eka's robotic claw technology, suggesting it could represent a breakthrough moment for physical manipulation akin to ChatGPT's impact on text AI.
Figure moved the humanoid story from demos to factory math. The company says F.03 output at BotQ jumped 24x in 120 days, from 1 robot a day to 1 an hour, with 55 robots planned for this week alone.