Welcome, sci-fi realists…

This week, it was reported that Coco Robotics’ delivery bots were swarming in Lincoln Park with nothing to do and nowhere to go. This gaggle of bots were blocking pedestrians, frustrating locals in the area. A spokesperson for the company claimed it was due to a “sidewalk deployment error.” This is actually good news, since this confirms they weren’t purposely slacking and ignoring their deliveries.  

The company’s assurance that it quickly rectified the issue and added safeguards lacked specific details, but let’s hope pedestrians find that their paths through Lincoln Park are clear from here on out. 

Anyway, here's what you need to know about robotics right now:

A U.S. robotics firm secures 100,000 GPUs through a strategic partnership to train humanoid AI

Figure is a U.S.-based robotics company seeking to build next-gen humanoid AI, but in order to do so, it reached across the pond to partner with Nscale in the U.K. Nscale will deploy 100,000 of NVIDIA’s Vera Rubin GPUs to help train Figure’s AI platform for humanoids, called Helix. 

This is a truly staggering number of GPUs that shows humanoid training now requires enormous amounts of processing power. Because this is such a massive undertaking, its start isn’t right around the corner and is instead slated for the latter half of 2027. 

The price tag on this deal is initially estimated at $3.5 billion, but the companies plan to expand to $6 billion over time. In return, Nscale looks to have Figure’s eventual trained humanoids work on improving its own supply chain operations. 

What this likely means for the future: If companies want to go all in on mass training and deploying of humanoids, they will need to secure thousands or hundreds of thousands of GPUs for crazy amounts of processing power, depending on what their needs are. 

This partnership will be difficult to one-up in the short run, at least for smaller companies. Expect larger companies with big budgets and resources to announce more partnerships, too.  

Robots in Action

For those actively following robotics, Agility Robotics is a name you all have undoubtedly heard. Now, their Digit humanoid is capable of taking instructions to redecorate a room and even showing humanesque strength in moving couches. The video below shows this, and alludes to how Digit could be useful in industrial settings, too. It has the strength to move crates without falling over, so it’s worth keeping an eye on Agility’s offerings. Check out its redecorating efforts in the video below: 

Around the Horn

Bots Behaving Badly

Now, what’s something that isn’t working so well?

A Unitree G1 humanoid was deployed in a Russian electronics store for some reason this week. When a customer decided to physically push it for a reaction, it got into a fighter’s stance and dished out technical, high-legged kicks while clerks attempted to restrain it. 

The question on everyone’s mind is whether it was trained to perform those moves in response to a perceived attack or if someone was remote-controlling it from afar. Either way, it incited both laughs and grave concerns about human safety on social media.

There’s also the not-so-scant possibility it was a scripted event made to go viral. Whatever the case, it’s still worth noting what humanoids are capable of, for better or worse. 

Industry Signals

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