🤖 Originally published on Awesome Robots
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TL;DR 📋
This week's highlights - From promising demos to serious scaling moves
- Figure hits $39B valuation - Massive $1B+ Series C funding round with major tech investors
- OpenAI doubles down on robotics - Heavy hiring for humanoid systems and embodied AI
- Research advances in torque-aware VLAs - Better physical constraints and safety in robot learning
- CoRL 2025 accepts key papers - Multi-arm manipulation and long-horizon robot learning
- Competition scene in China - Intelligent Bionic Robot Competition showcases innovation
Introduction 🚀
Over the past week, things have edged from "promising demos" toward serious scaling and organizational moves in humanoid robotics. We saw massive funding rounds, companies doubling down on embodied intelligence, and community scale-ups in robotics competitions. The gap between research lab innovation and market expectation continues to pose friction—but the field is accelerating. Below are the most relevant updates, papers, and trends shaping where things may go next.
Top News & Breakthroughs 📰
🏢 Company News
- Figure hits $39B valuation in massive funding round - Secured over $1 billion in Series C with NVIDIA, Intel Capital, LG Technology Ventures leading
- OpenAI is revving up robotics work with AGI ambitions - Heavy hiring in robotics-centric roles for humanoid systems and embodied AI
🚀 Product Launches
- Figure's BotQ facility expansion for manufacturing - Scaling humanoid robots for household and commercial use
- OpenAI's physical AI platform development - Connecting agents with physical world through teleoperation and simulation
💰 Funding & Investments
- Figure raised $1B+ Series C led by Parkway Venture Capital, NVIDIA, Intel Capital - Funds earmarked for scaling robots and AI platform Helix
- Humanoid-Global invested ~$75,000 in RideScan - Signals market interest in robot safety and performance analytics
🌐 Industry Developments
- Wired's "Move Aside, Chatbots: AI Humanoids Are Here" - Examines current landscape with Figure, Apptronik, Tesla, Boston Dynamics racing development
- Humanoid robotics competition scene accelerating - Events serving as testbeds for motion and interaction technologies
Research Spotlight 🔬
📄 Research Papers
-
TA-VLA: Design space of Torque-aware Vision-Language-Action Models - CoRL 2025 accepts paper on VLAs integrating torque sensing for safer interaction
- Published in: CoRL 2025
- Key Innovation: Better physical constraints and safety in learned models
-
Graph-Fused Vision-Language-Action for Multi-Arm Manipulation - Advances in coordinating multiple manipulators under VLA policies
- Key Innovation: Graph-based fusion for action coordination reasoning
-
RaC: Recovery & Correction in Long-Horizon Robot Learning - Framework for long-horizon tasks with recovery from partial failures
- Key Innovation: Correction strategies maintaining performance over extended sequences
🔧 Open Source Projects
-
Programmable Locking Cells for Modular Robots - Hardware modules with adjustable stiffness/tunability
- Use Cases: Robots with changing morphology and task-specific adaptation
-
Fault-Tolerant RL for Quadcopter Control - RL-based control strategies for UAV stability under component failure
- Use Cases: Robust deployment in real-world risky settings
🎓 Academic Breakthroughs
- CoRL 2025 researchers advance torque-aware learning - Integration of physical feedback into VLA models
- Chongqing competition teams present novel tech - Bio-inspiration and bionics for robotics designs
Event Horizon 📅
🗓️ This Week
-
Intelligent Bionic Robot Competition - Chongqing, China
- Focus: Bionics and bio-inspiration for robotics designs
- Innovation: Novel tech in motion and interaction
📅 Next Week
-
TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 - Oct 27-29 in San Francisco, USA
- Keynote Speakers: Raquel Urtasun (Waabi), Jeff Cardenas (Apptronik)
- Topics: Robotics, AVs, and AI hardware as major themes
🎯 Upcoming Deadlines
-
CoRL 2025 - Paper acceptance notifications released
- Requirements: Research in robot learning and control
🌍 Major Conferences (Next 3 Months)
- TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 - Oct 27-29 in San Francisco
- Humanoids Conference - Paper presentations and demos
- Regional robotics competitions - Ongoing across China and globally
Tool/Resource of the Week 🛠️
🎯 Featured Resource: RideScan by Humanoid-Global
Robot safety and performance analytics platform with recent investment backing for pilot deployments
Key Features:
- Safety Analytics - Performance measurement and validation systems
- Go-to-market Validation - Pilot deployment strategies for robotics companies
- Performance Metrics - Data collection and analysis for robot deployment
Why It's Useful:
While modest in scale (~$75,000 investment), this move signals growing market interest in robot safety and performance analytics. Measurement, safety, and data infrastructure are becoming increasingly fundable areas in robotics.
Getting Started:
- Investment Backing: Humanoid-Global partnership
- Pilot Deployments: Validation of market strategies
- Focus Areas: Safety analytics and performance measurement
Use Cases:
- Robot deployment safety validation
- Performance analytics for commercial robotics
- Go-to-market strategy validation for robotics startups
Community Corner 👥
💬 Trending Discussions
- Robotics forums - "Valuation vs Reality in Humanoids" - Community debates whether high valuations create pressure for demos over durability
- Competition scene - "China's Robotics Innovation" - Inspiring yet humbling displays of new designs with visible limitations
🛠️ Cool Projects
-
Chongqing Competition Entries - Novel bionic designs with ambitious motions
- Innovation: Bio-inspired locomotion and manipulation
- Reality Check: Battery life, precision, and control under disturbance still challenging
🎉 Community Highlights
- CoRL 2025 accepted papers on torque-aware learning - Community advancing physical constraints in AI
- Regional competitions driving benchmark improvements - Collective effort raising performance standards
🌟 Spotlight: Intelligent Bionic Robot Competition
The competition scene in China continues to prove both inspiring and humbling: new designs, ambitious motions, but still visible limitations in battery life, precision, and control under disturbance. These events are collectively dragging the benchmark higher and serving as crucial testbeds for real-world robotics applications.
Trends to Watch 🔍
Valuation vs Reality: With Figure's $39B valuation, increasing scrutiny on whether companies can deliver safe, usable humanoids at scale, not just flashy demos
Torque/Physical Constraints in Learning: Research like TA-VLA emphasizes integrating physical feedback/safety into learned models, counterbalancing over-reliance on perception systems
Hybrid Hardware/Competitions as Test Platforms: Competitions becoming standard competence check-ins for motion, robustness, control under disturbance, and endurance
Conclusion 🎯
Issue #4 reinforces the theme that humanoid robotics is no longer just exciting proposals and vision—scale, validation, and robustness are now under the spotlight. Big money is flowing, but expectations are rising. If you're building humanoids or generalist VLA stacks, the next 2-3 months will likely be decisive: either hardware, data, control, and safety converge—or the gap between hype and field performance opens up.
Looking ahead: I'll keep an eye on results from CoRL and Humanoids (papers, open-source), Tesla / Apptronik / Figure's deployment signals, and ways for smaller labs to piggyback on infrastructure (simulation, safety tools, modular morphology).
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