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

Launching HumanoidMegaHub out of beta

It's a big day!

We're launching HumandoidMegaHub out of beta. It's not guaranteed to be perfect in every detail yet, but we're excited to share what we've been building with the world.

If you have been following along with the Humanoid (Almost) Daily newsletter, now is a great time to join HumanoidMegaHub.

Why?

We map the entire humanoid ecosystem. The companies building. The investors investing. The robots themselves, with hard specs, and, crucially, the breakthroughs moving the whole field forward. Breaking news. Deep interviews with leading founders, CEOs, and technologists. The stories behind the stories.

The goal is to give you insight. You’ll understand the ecosystem. Know what's changing … why it matters … and what it means for you, your company, your job, your country.

And if you're an investor, you can do real due diligence in one place.

This is going to be one of the biggest industries of the next decade. This is bigger than cars. Bigger than smartphones. Bigger than just about anything.

Joining is free, and will give you access to insider information on almost 1,000 companies in the space and nearly 900 robots that we're tracking.

And yes, there will be some paid options in the future.

Agility's Digit 5: cage-free, OSHA-certified, and shipping to Europe

Agility Robotics unveiled Digit 5 today, and the headline is this: the safety cage is gone. 

This robot can work right next to people without the protective barriers that have been a basic cost of industrial automation for 60 years. 

Agility is also the first launch partner for NVIDIA's Halos for Robotics platform, pairing its new safety architecture with NVIDIA IGX Thor hardware. 

Deepu Talla, NVIDIA's VP of robotics and edge AI, said that "safely operating around people and assets is what moves humanoid robots from pilots to industrial deployments at scale."

Hardware upgrades are substantial. 

Digit 5 lifts 50 pounds, charges in nine minutes, runs on redesigned legs, and handles a full facility workflow: depalletizing incoming goods, machine tending, kitting, quality inspection, and final palletizing for shipment. It coordinates with existing AMRs, conveyors, and warehouse management systems.

The customer list is impressive: GXO, Schaeffler, Amazon, Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada. At GXO's Flowery Branch facility near Atlanta, Digit 4 hit 100,000 totes at roughly 98% accuracy. As of May 2026, Agility holds more than $300 million in multi-year customer orders.

And for the first time, Digit will leave North America. 

EU and UK commercial deployment is coming, with early access planned for the first half of 2027 and general availability by year-end. 

Military humanoids are no longer a thought experiment

We just released a position statement on robots and war, and not a moment too soon

Foundation Future Industries is testing its Phantom humanoid in Ukraine for supply runs and reconnaissance. The company released footage in May showing the robot loading a mortar. CEO Sankaet Pathak told Euronews weapons testing could begin in 2027. The company said field conditions in Ukraine prompted a full hardware redesign for outdoor operation.

It's not just Foundation. 

The U.S. Army's xTechHumanoid competition ran open calls for soldier-support prototypes, with up to $1.25 million in prize awards. South Korea's Navy tested KAIST's Pibot robot as a helmsman in simulated narrow waters and nighttime conditions in July. India's DRDO is developing its own military humanoid.

China has been rumored to be looking at humanoids for combat as well.

Here's the hard truth: a body that can carry a box through a warehouse can carry something else somewhere else. The generality is the product, and it cannot be engineered away. The military use cases are coming whether the civilian market wants them or not.

Unitree G1+ launches with serious performance upgrades

Unitree today launched the G1+, an upgraded version of its G1 humanoid with six major improvements across motion, perception, interaction, and endurance. 

The highlights: 

• two new neck degrees of freedom
• a 110% increase in peak shoulder-and-waist motor torque
• a 43% jump in maximum arm torque
• a binocular plus wide-angle vision system
• head touch sensing
• a six-microphone array
• dual ten-watt speakers

The price is RMB 95,000 in China: roughly $13,000. The G1 was already the most affordable capable humanoid on the market at launch, and the G1+ keeps that price while closing real performance gaps. Economies of scale are real, and increased production capacity should lead to additional price/performance jumps.

Unitree is playing a consistent game: affordable, iterative, and fast. The competition better be paying attention.

Atlas heads to Europe, but the IPO isn't coming

Hyundai Motor Group is now considering deploying Boston Dynamics' Atlas at its production plant in the Czech Republic. 

That follows the scheduled US rollout: Metaplant America in Georgia in 2028, Kia's Georgia plant in 2029. The stated strategy is to accumulate real-world data across a global manufacturing network. With Tesla, BMW, and Figure AI all moving toward factory deployment, the race has genuinely shifted from demos to production floors.

But here's the other side of that story. 

Hyundai has confirmed that a Boston Dynamics IPO will not happen in 2027. Atlas remains unprofitable and unscaled. Labor-management tensions are emerging at Hyundai plants as a potential obstacle to deployment timing.

So Atlas is getting deployed ... just not getting an IPO. The gap between operational progress and financial viability remains one to watch.

Number of the day: one humanoid robot every ten minutes

Chinese robotics company UBTECH has started operating a new humanoid factory in Liuzhou, China. 

The 14,000-square-meter facility, built in partnership with Siemens Digital Industries Software, is designed to produce up to 10,000 humanoid robots per year. Current throughput: one industrial humanoid every ten minutes.

That's massive.

The factory primarily produces UBTECH's Walker S and Cruzr series. And guess what: the robots are doing the assembly work. Cruzr Y1 and Cruzr S2 systems handle depalletizing, palletizing, loading, and material transport on the production floor. And there's a 65-square-meter automated warehouse on-site that stores 112 finished humanoids with more than 50% better space utilization than conventional racking.

Robots making robots, at scale, in China. One every ten minutes. Whatever you thought the timeline was for this industry, this factory probably shortens it.

Sources

• Agility Robotics Launches Digit 5: No More Safety Cages, $300 Million In Orders
• The Rundown AI — Foundation pushes its Phantom humanoid toward combat
• TechNode — Unitree launches upgraded G1+ humanoid robot with six major upgrades
• BigGo Finance — Hyundai Motor Considers Deploying Atlas at Czech Plant
• AI Insider — Ubtech Opens Humanoid Robot Factory With 10,000-Unit Capacity That Uses Robots As Workers