Robotics AI News & Updates
Nvidia Launches Comprehensive Physical AI Platform for Generalist Robotics at CES 2026
Nvidia unveiled a complete ecosystem for physical AI at CES 2026, including robot foundation models (Cosmos Transfer/Predict 2.5, Cosmos Reason 2, Isaac GR00T N1.6), simulation tools (Isaac Lab-Arena), and new Blackwell-...
Finnish Startup NestAI Raises €100M to Develop Physical AI for European Defense Applications
Finnish startup NestAI has secured €100 million in funding led by Finland's sovereign fund and Nokia to develop AI products for defense applications, including unmanned vehicles and autonomous operations. The company is...
Experiment Reveals Current LLMs Fail at Basic Robot Embodiment Tasks
Researchers at Andon Labs tested multiple state-of-the-art LLMs by embedding them into a vacuum robot to perform a simple task: pass the butter. The LLMs achieved only 37-40% accuracy compared to humans' 95%, with one mo...
Mbodi Develops Multi-Agent AI System for Rapid Robot Training Using Natural Language
Mbodi, a New York-based startup, has developed a cloud-to-edge AI system that uses multiple communicating agents to train robots faster through natural language prompts. The system breaks down complex tasks into subtasks...
Former OpenAI and Google Brain Researchers Launch AI-Powered Materials Science Startup with $300M
Periodic Labs, founded by OpenAI's Liam Fedus and Google Brain's Ekin Dogus Cubuk, emerged from stealth with a $300 million seed round to automate materials science discovery using AI. The startup combines robotic synthe...
Coco Robotics Establishes Physical AI Research Lab with UCLA Professor to Leverage Five Years of Delivery Robot Data
Coco Robotics, a last-mile delivery robot startup, has appointed UCLA professor Bolei Zhou as chief AI scientist to lead a new physical AI research lab. The lab will leverage millions of miles of data collected by Coco's...
SoftBank Acquires ABB Robotics for $5.4B to Advance Physical AI and ASI Vision
SoftBank Group announced the acquisition of ABB Group's robotics business unit for $5.375 billion, with the deal expected to close in mid-to-late 2026. The acquisition is part of SoftBank's strategic focus on "physical A...
Alibaba Partners with Nvidia to Integrate Physical AI Development Tools into Cloud Platform
Alibaba has announced a partnership with Nvidia to integrate Physical AI software stack into its cloud platform, enabling development of robotics, autonomous vehicles, and smart spaces through synthetic data generation....
TechCrunch Equity Podcast Covers AI Safety Wins and Robotics Golden Age
TechCrunch's Equity podcast episode discusses recent developments in AI, robotics, and regulation. The episode covers a live demo failure, AI safety achievements, and what hosts describe as the "Golden Age of Robotics."
Robotics Startup Investment Surges to $6 Billion as Industry Matures Beyond AI Hype
Venture investors poured $6 billion into robotics startups in the first seven months of 2025, making it one of the few non-AI categories experiencing funding growth. Industry veterans argue this surge stems from a decade...