USAPage 2

News on American humanoid robot companies, including Tesla Optimus, Figure, Agility Robotics, Apptronik and Boston Dynamics, plus US funding and policy.

USA archive

Here are the 5 winners of the U.S. Army's xTechHumanoid competition

Here are the 5 winners of the U.S. Army's xTechHumanoid competition

From 103 submissions to 5 winners: the xTechHumanoid competition results include a bulletproof humanoid robot, two power solutions, tactile sensors, and command-and-control software. This is pretty much a component map of what the U.S. Army thinks it needs.
Sep 30, 2026
Tesla's Optimus costs $46,000 with China. Without China, it's $131,000

Tesla's Optimus costs $46,000 with China. Without China, it's $131,000

Tesla's humanoid robot is already deeply embedded in China's manufacturing ecosystem. Removing it would nearly triple the unit cost.
Sep 30, 2026
This home humanoid costs $3,555 and learns new tasks with your smartphone

This home humanoid costs $3,555 and learns new tasks with your smartphone

Flourish 1 uses your phone's IMUs to capture motion demonstrations and trains a robot skill model in the cloud ... no coding, no teleoperation, just show it what to do. Is it magic or too good to be true?
Sep 29, 2026
Inside China's robot schools: 70 training grounds where humanoids drill 45 skills up to 600 times a day

Inside China's robot schools: 70 training grounds where humanoids drill 45 skills up to 600 times a day

China has built a state-backed network of 70-plus embodied AI training facilities where competing robot manufacturers train side by side and feed data into a shared national pool — a structural advantage no private US company has an equivalent for.
Sep 28, 2026
Agility Robotics CEO on how Digit 5 fixes "islands of automation"

Agility Robotics CEO on how Digit 5 fixes "islands of automation"

Agility Robotics just launched Digit 5, the company's next-generation humanoid robot will be able to work alongside humans without safety cages. We chatted with CEO Peggy Johnson in an exclusive interview as she unveils the new robot. We talk about Digit 5's payload, fast-charging battery, 360-degree vision, swappable end effectors, the upcoming SPAC, and how Agility trains new skills.
Sep 26, 2026
Feather launches a cheap(ish) American robot ... and outsources the brain

Feather launches a cheap(ish) American robot ... and outsources the brain

Feather Robotics launched a $29,990 two-armed robot built to be a body for other companies' AI, running models from Nvidia, Skild or Physical Intelligence. The pre-seed startup raised $7.6 million, claims over $1 million in revenue, and is betting thousands of physical AI companies will want hardware they can buy.
Sep 25, 2026
Amazon invests $100M to manufacture robots in Indiana

Amazon invests $100M to manufacture robots in Indiana

Amazon is building a $100 million robotics manufacturing facility in Greenwood, Indiana. It's part of a long-running strategic shift from being the world's biggest robot buyer to becoming a major robot maker.
Sep 24, 2026
Tesla third-generation Optimus robot leaked, Saudi Arabia's all-in on humanoid robots, and more ...

Tesla third-generation Optimus robot leaked, Saudi Arabia's all-in on humanoid robots, and more ...

In this Humanoid Daily: the Tesla Gen 3 Optimus design leaks, humanoid robots are breaking into mainstream entertainment, and Japan is exploring military support roles for humanoids. Plus, 80% of humanoid robots are being designed for industrial use, while Saudi Arabia could deploy up to 10,000 robots over five years through a major new partnership.

Sep 24, 2026
Boston Dynamics gives Atlas a factory to learn in

Boston Dynamics gives Atlas a factory to learn in

The Robotics Metaplant Application Center in Georgia is where Boston Dynamics trains Atlas humanoids for Hyundai’s assembly lines — and the 25,000-robot deployment target by 2030 just got its engine.
Sep 21, 2026
Faraday Future launches nine robot products: the full spec breakdown, and YT Jia on why humanoids only get you halfway

Faraday Future launches nine robot products: the full spec breakdown, and YT Jia on why humanoids only get you halfway

Faraday Future unveiled five new robot models across nine configurations at its annual 919 event in Los Angeles on Friday, completing what the company calls EAI Robot World 2.0 and taking its catalog to three form factors, five product series, 11 models and 24 products.
Sep 21, 2026
Inside BOT: What RoboStrategy is buying in the emerging $10 trillion robot economy

Inside BOT: What RoboStrategy is buying in the emerging $10 trillion robot economy

RoboStrategy is a non-diversified, closed-end management investment company registered under the Investment Company Act of 1940, trading on the Nasdaq as BOT. We chat with the CEO, Andrew Kang, about who will win in humanoid robots.
Sep 18, 2026
Hello Digit 5, Foundation goes to war in Ukraine, and a new Chinese factory is pumping out 1 humanoid every 10 minutes

Hello Digit 5, Foundation goes to war in Ukraine, and a new Chinese factory is pumping out 1 humanoid every 10 minutes

Today in Humanoid Daily: Agility's Digit 5 kills the safety cage, military humanoids are no longer hypothetical, Unitree G1+ gets six big upgrades, Atlas heads to Europe, but the IPO doesn't, the number of the day is 1 humanoid every 10 minutes ... AND ALSO ... today we are launching HumanoidMegaHub out of beta!

Sep 15, 2026
Hello Digit 5: Agility Robotics releases a key candidate for a safe robot coworker

Hello Digit 5: Agility Robotics releases a key candidate for a safe robot coworker

Agility Robotics' Digit 5 is the first humanoid engineered from the outset around a certifiable functional safety architecture, and a 20-hour workday. The design choices that make that possible include a dedicated safety island, redundant human detection, a statically stable degraded pose, and cycloidal actuators sized for fatigue life rather than peak torque.
Sep 15, 2026
Hello construction: this semi-humanoid robot can use tools and build houses

Hello construction: this semi-humanoid robot can use tools and build houses

A new research company spun out of the team behind construction robot Zyrex says the transferable layer isn't the humanoid robot body ... it's knowing how to run the tools that already exist. And ZINOVA's capabilities are impressive already.
Sep 15, 2026
Skild AI hits $100M revenue run rate in 10 months. Physical AI is apparently very lucrative

Skild AI hits $100M revenue run rate in 10 months. Physical AI is apparently very lucrative

The Pittsburgh physical AI startup that teaches robots new tasks from a single video demonstration has gone from $30M to $100M in annual revenue run rate in under a year, with 60+ customers ...
Sep 10, 2026
The robot is not the product: the factory of the future

The robot is not the product: the factory of the future

Inside Agile Robots' bet that the factory — not the humanoid — is what you actually sell. And the humanoid is just one part of many components that altogether form the factory of the future.

Sep 8, 2026
Samsung accelerates its humanoid robot program, and China looks at humanoids for war

Samsung accelerates its humanoid robot program, and China looks at humanoids for war

Today in Humanoid Daily: Samsung races toward a humanoid robot, aiming to launch at CES 2027, China explores robots for war Agility Robotic’s finances go public, humanoids spread into real markets, there's a new robot that draws blood, and the number of the day is 26 million ... as in 26 million humanoids a year.

Sep 7, 2026
The robot economy is getting real: NVIDIA, China, LG, and robots building houses

The robot economy is getting real: NVIDIA, China, LG, and robots building houses

Today in Humanoid Daily ... robot hardware is getting cheaper, China's pouring EVEN MORE money into humanoid robots, LG is building out its physical AI solutions, robots are starting to build houses, and NVIDIA might just be the one company making the most money from robotics right now.
Sep 1, 2026
NVIDIA's robot business is already worth $10 billion/year, and China is its best customer

NVIDIA's robot business is already worth $10 billion/year, and China is its best customer

NVIDIA's physical AI business is already generating roughly $10 billion a year, more than the entire humanoid robot industry combined, with Jensen Huang pointing to a tenfold path over the next decade. A meaningful share of that comes from China, which built about 90% of the world's humanoids last year. But Beijing is racing to build a domestic stack ...

Sep 1, 2026