Robotics Special: NVIDIA unveils research-grade humanoid

Welcome back, Superhuman. It’s been another big week in robotics. Humanoid robotics is turning out to be Nvidia’s next platform bet, as the company teamed up with China’s Unitree and dropped a research-grade humanoid robot for the laboratory. Meanwhile, a new MIT study is casting doubt on one of the biggest promises of the robotaxi hype.

1. Nvidia unveils research-grade humanoid robot for academics: The company has unveiled the Isaac GR00T Reference Humanoid Robot, an open-platform research robot combining a Unitree H2 body and an onboard Blackwell GPU, giving universities a unified hardware and software platform to develop humanoid skills. The company plans to extend its open humanoid robot reference design beyond China's Unitree to partners in the US, Europe, and South Korea as well. Watch the concept in action here.

2. Sam Altman is quietly backing a stealth robotics startup: The OpenAI CEO has reportedly invested in Alfred, a nine-month-old startup building software that helps engineers design robots. Founded by former Tesla and Meta employees, the Hawthorne-based startup is targeting a $40M valuation. The investment comes as Altman publicly declared robotics to be OpenAI's next frontier, and as physical AI startups raised $5.3 billion in VC funding in April alone.

3. New data pokes a major hole in the robotaxi promise: Robotaxis have long been pitched as a solution to urban congestion, but an MIT analysis of Waymo's California operation tells a different story. Across 86M miles, Waymo's robotaxis traveled empty 44% of the time, nearly matching the deadhead rate of Uber and Lyft. Ride-hailing made the same traffic-reduction promises a decade ago before evidence showed the opposite. It looks like robotaxis may be heading down the same road.

Despite 88% of orgs adopting AI, only 31% can scale it effectively. Why? 

The issue isn’t tools—it’s context. Slack’s latest guide: The Context Opportunity: Unlocking Agentic Productivity at Scale, unpacks how you can effectively solve this context issue directly within your channels using Slackbot.

Context hunting wastes 4.5 hours/week on average. Slackbot solves this by connecting your employees to your company’s entire knowledge base (orgs using Slack report up to 47% increase in productivity).

Boost your productivity with Slack’s guide.

🎞 Show Stopper: Eight Unitree robots danced their way to a standing ovation on the season premiere of America's Got Talent, performing a synchronized routine with Chinese dancer Wu Yufei that left judges visibly stunned. The clip racked up over 1M YouTube views in 24 hours. For most Americans, it’s an early look at how quickly robots are making their way into mainstream culture. Watch the viral performance here.

✋ Helping Hand: While most robotics startups are still perfecting demos in controlled lab settings, Hello Robot's Stretch 4 is already deployed in real homes. Investor Keith Platt, who suffers from severe mobility challenges, uses his robot to make breakfast, brush his teeth, and put on his reading glasses — tasks that he previously needed help with. Dive deeper into the story here.

🚶 Stand Up: Six children with spinal muscular atrophy (a genetic disease that progressively destroys muscle control) had never been able to stand up without help. After six weeks of training with a new knee robot that gently resisted their movements during video game exercises, all six children stood up independently. The gains held even after the children stopped using the device and returned to conventional physiotherapy.

Here are the biggest developments in the robotics space that you should know about:

Let your business teams build production apps with AI. Your IT team configures the guardrails once.

Book a demo today.

Those long walks don’t have to feel so long.

The Moonwalkers Aero are robotic shoes by Shift Robotics that can wheel you around at speeds of up to 7 mph. The 4.3-pound shoes strap onto your existing footwear and automatically adjust power based on your walking pace, with F1-inspired air intakes to keep the motors cool.

You can check them out here.

A clip, which is spreading like wildfire on social media, shows a Unitree G1 robot, wearing a blue clown wig, performing a roundhouse kick that struck a young child in the stomach. The child was not seriously injured, but the incident has reignited questions about deploying powerful humanoid robots in crowded public settings.

You’re the reason our team spends hundreds of hours every week researching and writing this email. Please let us know what you thought of today’s email to help us create better emails for you.

Until next time,

Zain, Faiq, and the Superhuman AI team