Is scaling production harder than scaling deployment? That turns out to be conditional on how close to existing products your robot or autonomous vehicle is, and how capable you are of building, or partnering with, the necessary servicing and support infrastructure. No robot build or use case is identical to another.
It is always great to hear from the master of robot production and deployment Rodney Brooks at our recent Automated Happy Hour with Brian Heater and A3 at Circuit Launch Mountain View. The podcast will go live soon. Brooks claims to still have the largest number of humanoid robots in active work, with more than 1000 Baxters used in industry. Of course Baxter is on wheels but at the moment there isn’t a clear leader in form factor in the race to produce or deploy humanoids (or half humanoids or bimanual mobile manipulators). Frankly, whichever form factor dominates in the next five years will be called a humanoid.
News this week is that Tesla is struggling to scale Optimus production although they claim to now have more than 500 rolling off the production line each week. Nonetheless they are still ‘tester’ units aimed at training, data collection and other learning opportunities. Supply chain shortages are having a significant impact.
Last year the leaders in humanoid production were still speaking in 100s, this year we are 10x across production and 10x across the number of companies involved. Deployment however is still in units of 10s, largely pilots, research or entertainment.
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Actuate replays and Fully Connected sold out
I’m excited to be going to CoreWeave’s Fully Connected this week, but I’m afraid I can’t offer any more free passes as the event is now sold out. As you know, the Weights&Biases team is now at CoreWeave pushing physical AI initiatives and we’ll be getting some deep dives into the full stack of development and deployment from the field, with some hands-on robotics labs and demos.
If you missed Actuate, or just want to replay some of the great discussions, the Foxglove team have released the videos. See the full playlist here.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/v2YfBvj6MZ0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Autotech Council’s Annual Demo Day
Join Autotech Council’s Annual Demo Day for an afternoon of innovation and discovery as OEMs, vendors, tech companies and industry hopefuls exhibit side by side to introduce the latest automotive technology to strategy, R&D, scouting, and partnership executives from across the industry.
Explore cutting-edge demos and exhibits, network with automotive industry leaders, and get a glimpse of the future of mobility.
For information on personal introductions to exhibitors, speakers, and other attendees via our MatchMaker Meetings service, see our website for details and the current list of MatchMaker participants, or enjoy an expo pass for only $40. https://autotech.cventevents.com/DemoDay26
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/cqOz1Epfa9c?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Silicon Valley Robotics Investor/Startup Database
Every month or two we share updated startup information with accredited investors. These investors write checks anywhere from angel and seed stage to $5-50 million.
- Feedback from the startups – high quality inbound interest from investors.
- Feedback from the investors – incredible depth and range of robotics startups.
Are you a startup fundraising atm? Fill out our “For Investors Eyes Only” sheet.
If you’re an accredited investor and haven’t already signed up for the spreadsheet – Sign up here for great robotics deal flow!
Our Venture Summits
- Hard Tech Venture Summit | Toronto, Canada October 20-21* Application is required to attend.
- Robotics Venture Summit | Silicon Valley, California December 6-9* Application is required to attend. IEEE Entrepreneurship is excited to be part of the 2026 IEEE-RAS 25th International Conference on Humanoid Robots.
If you enjoy Robots & Startups please restack. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Meet Goose from The Robot Works
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/e502XYW7E1g?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0
Love the form factor! (Could live without the soundtrack 🙂
From a Human-Robot Interaction perspective however, The Robot Works have nailed it. Not overpromising capabilities in communication, controllability or manipulation and not creating something scary or overly cutified. The team from Belmont California also have an impressive track record of experience at robotics and large scale consumer electronics companies.
Co-founder and CEO Humphrey Hu has a PhD from CMU and 16 years of hardware/software experience including seven years building consumer robots at Apple and Anki. The rest of the founding team have well rounded experience shipping products ranging from Amazon’s Astro, to automotive and health technology.
This is the goose, our vision for a robot that’s welcome in the home. Think of it as a clever working animal that takes things off your plate (in the figurative sense) with a personality that puts a smile on your face.
The goose shown here is a prototype, and in this film a person is driving it. It’s operating in our own homes alongside our children and parents, because that’s the bar we hold ourselves to: we build something we trust around our own loved ones before anyone else’s.
We’re The Robot Works. We’re just getting started. 🔸
Contact us: hello@therobotworks.ai
Website: https://www.therobotworks.ai/yt/
Robotics News
Physical Intelligence leases entire Pear Village building – Silicon Valley Business Journal
Qualcomm to Acquire PickNik to Advance the Future of Open Robotics and Physical AI – Qualcomm
Boston Dynamics Opens Robotics Metaplant Application Center to Train Humanoid Robots for Manufacturing Tasks – Boston Dynamics
Amazon to Expand Robot-Making Capacity With New, $100-Million Indiana Hub – WSJ
Google is giving away the ‘Android of robotics’ – Forbes
US robot maker targets $30m annual output from Vietnam plant – VNEconomy
Agility Robotics, maker of Digit humanoid, exploring wheeled robots – The Robot Report
Waymo is scaling fast: Here’s what the deployment data shows – TechCrunch
Tesla Optimus Hits Snags in Hands, Suppliers as Scale-Up Begins – The Information
Meet Feather, the startup building the ‘Android of robotics’ for developers – TechCrunch
Tesla workers balk at training Optimus humanoid robots as replacements – Ars Technica
Navy launches Robotics and Autonomous Systems Warfighting Development Center – Breaking Defense
‘Without a single command from the ground’: Asteroid-mining company to launch world’s 1st autonomous space mission in 2027 – Space.com
Vogue sent robots down the runway at Vogue World, and people were not impressed – TechCrunch
Robotics Events
Highlights from IEEE Humanoids 2026:
- Moritz Bächer joins keynote speakers, RJ Scaringe and Jerry Pratt
- 63% increase in paper submissions – Acceptance notification Oct 6
- Workshops and Tutorials – Acceptance notification Sept 28
- NIST Humanoids 2026 Loco-Manipulation Challenge – expressions of interest are open now. Testbed humanoids available thanks to our Partners.
Want to host an event or reach the robotics community?
Many companies are reaching out to Silicon Valley Robotics about hosting events, outreach or hiring and we have a great community network, of people looking for work, of investors interested in deal flow and of technologists interested in learning about the latest advances.
Would you be interested in hosting the next Bots, Bevs and Devs? Or something customized specifically for your goals? Reach out here!
More Robotics Events:
IROS 2026 – Pittsburgh – Sep 27 – Oct 1
Fully Connected 26 – San Francisco – Sep 29 – Oct 1 – SOLD OUT
Bots, Bevs and International Women in Robotics Day – Mountain View – Oct 7
Autotech Council’s Annual Demo Day – Palo Alto – Oct 15
Maritime Dual Use Hackathon – San Francisco – Oct 16-18
Long Horizon Physical AI – San Francisco – Oct 20 -21 (use SVR35 discount code)
RobOpsCon26 – Oct 22
SVR and Intel Robot Developer Workshop – Oct 22
Bots, Bevs & Devs – tbd – Nov4
Bots, Bevs & Devs – tbd – Dec 2
IEEE Humanoids 2026 – Silicon Valley – Dec 6-9
* including SVR Venture and Manufacturing Summits – Dec 7
The annual IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots is the internationally recognized prime event of the humanoid robotics community. The conference is sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society and coordinated by the Technical Committee on Humanoids.
Join the organizing team at Silicon Valley Robotics – bots&beer@svrobo.org
