Robotics Special: Wall Street bets big on robots

Robots aren’t just for Silicon Valley nerds—Wall Street is jumping on the robotics bandwagon, too. Morgan Stanley now forecasts that robotics will be a $4.7 trillion global market by 2050 — that’s twice the total revenue of 2024’s 20 largest automakers combined. Meanwhile, an open-source AI company has just released a budget-friendly robotic arm that you can build in your garage.

P.S. The Robotics Special is designed to help you stay on the cutting edge of the latest breakthroughs and products in the industry. Our regular AI and Tech updates will resume as usual on Monday.

WHAT’S NEXT

The most important news and breakthroughs in robotics this week

Get a Grip: Open-source giant Hugging Face literally wants to give you a helping hand. The AI company has launched the SO-101, a programmable robotic arm that can perform basic tasks through reinforcement learning. The 3D-printable robot marks a major expansion of Hugging Face's robotics ambitions, which recently grew with its acquisition of French startup Pollen Robotics. If you’re looking to build one for yourself, you can find instructions here.

Rubble Rover: After months of hype, Deep Robotics has finally launched the world's first wheeled quadruped that can traverse virtually any terrain. Packed with dual 96-line LiDAR, wide-angle cameras, and 360° vision, the hybrid hound autonomously makes its way through mud, rubble, and water in temperatures ranging from -20°C to 55°C. From inspecting underground power cables to supporting disaster response, it could help bridge the gap between human labor and heavy machinery. Watch it in action here.

China trains robot swarms: In a world-first, China’s Walker S1 humanoid robots have completed collaborative multi-robot training at Zeekr's smart factory. Powered by DeepSeek R1, these robots scheduled, decomposed, and coordinated tasks autonomously using human-like common-sense reasoning. The robot fleet operated across critical production areas, handling complex tasks through a combination of "super brain" central intelligence and "intelligent sub-brains" for distributed learning.

Swarm School: Schools of fish typically don’t have a leader, yet they’re remarkably good at staying in formation and avoiding collisions. Scientists have used these insights from fish to train robot swarms. They built a VR system where fish could interact with holographic versions of themselves, learning that schools of fish coordinate their movements using only their neighbors' positions, not their own speed. The team then implemented this natural "control law" in robot swarms, matching the performance of complex industry-standard systems much more efficiently.

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ROBOTS IN ACTION

How robots are transforming the world around us

Walk the Talk: Researchers have developed MyoStep, a next-generation soft exoskeleton designed to help children with cerebral palsy walk more easily and confidently. The lightweight system combines artificial muscles and Bluetooth-connected sensors that monitor movements in real time and adjust support accordingly.

Fire Fighters: Chinese robotics firm Unitree has unveiled fire rescue robots capable of shooting water or foam with impressive 40 liters-per-second flow rates. Already deployed with China's Qingdao Firefighting and Rescue Support Team, these mechanical hounds represent a major advancement in modernizing emergency response.

Iron Chef: BurgerBots and ABB Robotics have teamed up to open a new robot-run burger joint, where collaborative robots can assemble a perfect snack in 27 seconds flat. It ensures smooth operations while freeing human staff to focus on customer experience.

Table Tech: If a robot can flip a burger, it might as well serve it. A Dorset café has introduced Bella, a robot waitress that can assist staff during busy times. The robot delivers food, sings songs, and can even interact with customers.

Bovine Butler: Netherlands-based Lely is revolutionizing dairy farms with robots that handle everything from milking to feeding to manure cleanup. Unlike conventional systems, Lely's approach lets cows choose when to visit the milking robot, resulting in happier herds and up to 10% more milk production.

ROBO REEL

Watch: China’s 2-pound drone that looks like a flying thermos and drops grenades

It’s being hailed as the “most terrifying video on the internet”.

China has unveiled a new type of drone that has one of the world's largest payload ratios for its size. It allows a single soldier to control multiple units through AI targeting assistance — a look into China's broader push into "intelligent warfare" with cost-effective, AI-enabled unmanned systems. Watch it here.

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ROBOT OF THE WEEK

A robot that caught our eye this week

Matic is the first embodied AI robot that learns your home and habits, and cleans the way you like. It uses Tesla FSD-inspired computer vision to sense what’s around it, auto-toggling between cleaning modes to get the job done.

You can check it out here.

MARKET MOVEMENTS

Acquisitions, investments, funding, and more

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

• Morgan Stanley analysts are betting big on humanoid robots, forecasting a $4.7 trillion global market by 2050 — that’s 2x the total revenue of last year's 20 largest automakers combined.

• Pony AI has slashed production costs for its most advanced driving systems by 70%, bringing it closer to the industry's holy grail of "single-unit breakeven" — meaning it would profit every time a new robotaxi joins its fleet.

• Figure AI has sent cease-and-desist letters to multiple secondary market brokers demanding they stop marketing the company's shares, despite founder Brett Adcock recently posting that his company is the "#1 most sought-after private stock in the secondary market."

• Near Space Labs has nabbed $20M in Series B funding to take its high-res imaging Swift robots into the stratosphere.

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Zain and the Superhuman AI team