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Tech News
South Korea's K-pop industry is increasingly incorporating artificial intelligence and robotics into aspects of music creation and live performance. The move has drawn scrutiny from fans and performers who have voiced concerns about the technology's role in an industry built on human artistry.
Toyota plans to invest $6.42 billion annually beginning in 2028 to add 150,000 robots at its own auto plants and 250,000 more at group facilities making parts and materials, according to Nikkei Asia. Workers are already helping train Toyota's wheeled ELEY humanoid robots by wearing finger-shaped jigs to teach precise hand movements. Executive vice president Hiroki Nakajima said the goal is for robots to coexist with humans rather than replace them.
XPENG announced on September 7 that its Iron humanoid robot autonomously walked off its newly operational assembly line right after being built, with CEO He Xiaopeng marking the moment by giving it a staff badge. The company says more than 80 percent of the line's core processes are automated, using quality-control methods borrowed from its car manufacturing operations, as it targets mass production of Iron by year's end.
Robotics company REK released video of what it calls the first human-versus-robot mixed martial arts match, pitting a six-foot-tall humanoid robot against TikTok personality Frankie LaPenna in a padded octagon. In the 44-second clip, the robot repeatedly strikes LaPenna and ultimately throws him with a kick, appearing to end the fight decisively in the machine's favor.
Agility Robotics has launched Digit 5, a general-purpose humanoid robot built with proprietary AI and sensor systems that detect nearby people and respond by moving aside, stopping, or dropping into a seated crouch. The behavior, shown in a promotional video, is powered partly by Nvidia's Thor IGX chip alongside vision sensors that continuously track human presence. Agility already deploys robots with companies like Amazon and Toyota and is positioning this safety-first design to broaden commercial adoption.
Copper-Rs, a Rust-based robotics framework, has introduced a live telemetry system that streams copperlists using forward error correction so a remote 'twin' copy of the robot's software stack can decode, reorder, and self-heal from lossy connections. The twin stack can even jump to recovery points if too much data is lost, ending up running an exact mirror of the robot's live process, which can then be logged or displayed for operators.
San Mateo County's Board of Supervisors voted 4-0 to advance an ordinance requiring businesses to obtain permits before deploying autonomous, battery-powered robots in workplaces. Companies must submit an Economic Impact Assessment and Workforce Mitigation Plan, choosing to redeploy displaced workers at equal pay, offer 60 days' notice with severance, or pay into a new county fund for retraining. The rule, believed to be the first of its kind in the U.S., still needs final adoption before taking effect 30 days later.
Robotics startup Vsim, founded by former Nvidia Isaac Sim engineers Lu and Storey, has built a high-performance training simulator optimized for modern GPU chips rather than older algorithms from the 1970s and 80s. The resulting software is efficient enough to run directly on the hardware of their robot Freddo, letting it simulate tens of thousands of possible near-future scenarios in real time while moving.
Nvidia Inception's Global Head of Physical AI, Les Karpas, will speak at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 about why robotics hasn't had its breakthrough moment the way ChatGPT transformed language AI. His session will examine the lack of an internet-scale dataset for physical AI, unlike the vast text corpora that powered large language models or the road-mile data amassed by self-driving companies like Waymo.
Transforma Insights projects the number of automated urban delivery vehicles will jump from 28,000 in 2025 to 559,000 by 2035. The forecasted growth raises concerns about gig worker displacement at companies like Uber Eats and DoorDash, even as current robots' roughly two-mile range keeps human drivers necessary for now. Meanwhile, weak oversight—including over 20 states classifying these devices as pedestrians—is prompting cities such as Chicago, San Francisco and Toronto to impose restrictions or bans.
San Francisco startup Foundation, backed by Eric Trump, has signed a $24 million contract with the Pentagon to advance its Phantom MK1 humanoid robot for military use. CEO Sankaet Pathak says the machines aren't yet capable of combat but envisions a future where they could enter buildings to complete missions instead of airstrikes, and hasn't ruled out arming them. The company has already deployed about ten robots, including with the Air Force and in logistics support roles in Ukraine.
Planted, a startup that uses digital-twin software and robots to redesign and build solar farms, has raised $31.8 million led by Piva Capital and RA Capital Management Planetary Health, with backing from Google, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, Gigascale Capital, and Khosla Ventures. The company's technology helped one St. Louis-area project cut land use by 40% while producing the same power output, resolving a zoning dispute that had stalled the development.