MassRobotics, Massport and other organizations held the "Robots in Airports" event on November 9, 2026, at Boston Logan International Airport, connecting New England airport operators directly with robotics startups.
As factories deploy more robots, predictive maintenance uses equipment data such as vibration, temperature, motor current, torque, and controller alarms to identify early signs of wear in joints, reducers, motors, and controllers, so maintenance decisions are based on actual condition rather than a fixed schedule. IFR data shows that about 5 million industrial robots were in operation worldwide in 2025, up 11% year over year, and an unexpected failure of a single robot could affect an entire work cell and production line. Earlier warnings can reduce unplanned downtime, improve spare-parts planning, and make maintenance windows more controllable.
Speaking at the Baron Investment Conference, Musk said Tesla's Optimus humanoid robot will likely be offered through leasing rather than direct sale. He disclosed an initial per-unit cost of about $30,000, dropping to about $20,000 after mass production; the Fremont factory has begun early mass production, with the line built for a scale of 1 million units per year, and external deliveries not expected until late 2027 at the earliest. The article also analyzes that the leasing model can generate ongoing rental and software maintenance revenue and let Tesla control robot operating data.
On November 7, the General Embodied Brain Industry Innovation Consortium was launched at a side exchange meeting of the China International Import Expo in Shanghai. Initiated by MouShen Intelligence, it brings together 42 enterprises and research institutions, with members including Fudan University's School of Future Information Innovation, the National and Local Co-built Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Unitree Robotics, and UBTECH.
Lin Junyang, Luo Fuli, and Dai Dali, who came out of Peking University's Institute of Computational Linguistics (ICL), are associated with large-model teams including Qwen, Xiaomi MiMo, and DeepSeek, respectively. According to Jiaziguangnian statistics, as of May 2026, DeepSeek papers had more than 300 authors; among the 25 researchers who participated in 10 or more papers, nearly 40% came from Peking University, and 4 graduated from the Institute of Computational Linguistics. Lin Junyang founded Yuyong Technology in August 2026, focusing on next-generation physical-world agents, and completed an angel round at a $2 billion valuation.
Cao Peng, Chairman of JD.com's Technology Committee, said at the Robotics and Embodied Intelligence Forum of the 2026 World Internet Conference Wuzhen Summit that JD Logistics plans to procure 3 million robots, 1 million unmanned vehicles, and 100,000 drones over the next five years.
IIC Shenzhen 2026 will be held on December 9-10 at the Sheraton Shenzhen Futian Hotel. The series of summit forums will break down the industrialization path of physical AI across dimensions including edge computing power, visual perception, storage architecture, power devices, quadruped robot practices, and open-source AIoT solutions.
Suzhou-based general embodied intelligence company UniX AI announced on November 9 that it has completed a RMB 500 million Pre-A funding round. Existing shareholders Xienuo Investment and Yonghua Investment increased their investment, while Greenland Group, Keli Sensing, Huagong Venture Capital, Xinjing Fuying, Redbird Qihang Fund, and Yulin Industrial Investment joined as new investors.
AGIBOT has proposed a robot workload measurement framework called Worken, which calculates "effective intelligent working hours" as "number of active robots × autonomous working duration × output efficiency ratio," linking the effective work robots actually complete with autonomous operating time and output quality.
Greenzie announced that commercial mowing equipment driven by its Powered Autonomy platform has surpassed 255,000 cumulative autonomous operating miles and more than 9 billion square feet of cumulative mowing area, covering more than 200 commercial customers, 45 U.S. states, and 4 countries.
In early November, former Baidu Group Vice President and Baidu Research Vice President Wu Tian officially joined Sany Group as Group Vice President, Dean of the Yun AI Institute, and concurrently Dean of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Previously, in October, former Chery Automobile Vice President Xie Baojun had also joined the Sany system. The article states that Sany designated 2025 as its "first year of intelligence," seeking to make AI a general capability across all roles. Vice President Li Hongwei said Sany will develop into an AI-native robotics company in the future, but currently unmanned operations still rely mainly on rule-based algorithms rather than being data-driven.
On November 5, Agility Robotics listed on Nasdaq under the ticker AGLT, closing its first day at $11.51, up 2.2%, and falling to $8.75 as of November 9. Its prospectus shows Digit has accumulated more than 65,000 operating hours and handled over 100,000 totes, but revenue in the first half of 2026 was only $174,000 with a net loss of $362 million; the $300 million Digit 5 order comes from a single related party, and that model is not planned for delivery to early customers until the first half of 2027.
On November 10, Unitree Robotics rose more than 12% intraday, with its share price exceeding 800 yuan per share, overtaking Lianxun Instruments to become the third-highest-priced stock on the A-share market, with total market capitalization still above 300 billion yuan; based on the stage low of 404.03 yuan per share on October 15, the share price has rebounded nearly 100%.
At 2026 CeMAT ASIA, Bangqi Technology is showcasing a full-stack embodied intelligence logistics solution and a "pay-per-operation-value" RaaS model, combining standardized AMR transport with humanoid robots for end-of-line operations, coordinated by its self-developed ADS scheduling system. The solution has been validated on a production line at a leading vehicle manufacturer, improving material delivery efficiency by 30%; in a warehouse goods-to-person project, equipment achieved 7×24-hour unmanned operation, boosting capacity by 125% with 99.9% accuracy. RaaS is billed by actual workload, and the full model can be deployed in 1-3 months.
On November 9, Unitree Robotics shares rose more than 15% intraday, with market capitalization briefly topping 300 billion yuan, before closing up 9.04% at 716 yuan. An Apple research team used a modified Unitree G1 to validate the HALO paper, completing 360 single-task tests across six real-world environments without prior mapping, with an average success rate of 91%. Unitree and Kunlun Manufacturing plan to establish a new joint venture to conduct industrial embodied intelligent robot solution business; as of the time of verification, the plan was still in its public notice period.
At the Baron investment conference on November 6, Musk said Optimus will "probably be rented out" when asked whether it would be rented or sold. He said per-unit manufacturing cost would initially be around $30,000 and later fall toward $20,000, and that external deliveries would wait until late 2027 and would most likely take the form of leases.
The Guangdong Luxshare Technology Greater Bay Area Center project recently obtained a construction project planning permit. With a total investment of RMB 280 million, it is located in the 2112 Industrial Park in Tianhe, Guangzhou, and will build R&D centers for embodied robots and sorting robots as well as a supporting production center for the industrial chain. Once fully operational, it is expected to generate an annual output value of RMB 1 billion. Tianhe District provides up to RMB 100 million in funding support to enterprises working on core technologies such as large models and dexterous hands, and up to RMB 10 million per year in subsidies for the construction of embodied training grounds; Huangpu District provides up to RMB 50 million in support for each newly introduced project.
At the China International Import Expo, robots have entered scenarios such as drug picking, depalletizing, sorting, handling, assembly, and teaching-free welding, but most are still in the "trial" stage, with only some scenarios deployed at scale. Apple HALO completed 360 single-task tests in 6 real environments without pre-built maps, with an average success rate of 91%; after GPT-6Astra was connected to different robot bodies, some tasks took from one or two minutes to more than 30 minutes or even an hour. Industry observers judge that the "ChatGPT moment" for embodied intelligence may arrive in the second half of 2027, and the turning point may appear separately by scenario such as retail pharmacies and industrial sorting.
At CeMAT ASIA 2026, Zhiwang Weilai, Yuanli Lingji and Geek+ each presented warehouse solutions that move robots from moving boxes to picking goods.
Hanwha is in talks to invest $50 million in KAIST-incubated quadruped robot company LionRobotics, while LIG Nex1 has taken a controlling stake in Ghost Robotics and Hyundai Rotem is partnering with Rainbow Robotics.
In 2025, China's flexible collaborative robot market reached nearly 1.5 billion yuan, up more than 20% year on year, and is expected to reach 4.5 billion yuan by 2031. Each joint of a flexible collaborative robot has a built-in high-precision torque sensor, enabling native force control at multiple points throughout the robot; these robots are used in consumer electronics, automotive manufacturing, new energy, healthcare, shipbuilding, and other fields. The SR series flexible collaborative robots launched by Rokae adopt full-joint force control technology and have been applied in automotive assembly and electronics manufacturing.
The IPO channel for the humanoid robotics industry is rapidly narrowing: the A-share and Hong Kong listing windows are essentially closed, and the backdoor listing route is also difficult to pursue. After Zhiyuan Robotics acquired control of Shangwei New Materials, Shangwei New Materials announced in October 2025 that Zhiyuan has no backdoor listing plan within the next 3 years. The closure of exit channels has sharply increased financing difficulty; over the past two months, quoted prices for secondary sales of old shares in the embodied intelligence sector have generally been only 65% to 80% of the previous round's valuation. In the first half of 2026, China's embodied intelligence-themed investment and financing reached 172 deals totaling 109.174 billion yuan, but financing activity fell rapidly after September.
In the second half of 2026, as embodied intelligence funding cooled, Maxinsights, Jingshuo Technology, and Jianzhi Robotics completed a $30 million seed round, a several tens of millions of dollars Pre-A round, and a $100 million A+ round, respectively, within ten days. None of the three companies builds complete robots; their core teams have backgrounds in autonomous driving data closed loops, and they enter data supply through a global collection network, a data platform spun off from WeRide, and a multimodal collection production line, respectively. The article points out that data volume does not equal data value, and long-term competitiveness depends on data production and cross-embodiment reuse capabilities.
The Chaoyong AI editorial team compares China-US paths in embodied intelligence, arguing that China leads in complete-machine cost, supply chain, and shipment scale, while US companies enter the physical world through general-purpose models. The article cites cases including Qianxun Intelligence's Moz1 maintaining a plug-in success rate above 99% on a CATL PACK production line, the HOST framework from Zhiyuan (Variable) achieving an average success rate of 62% across 50 desktop tasks, and Physical Intelligence negotiating a funding round of over $1 billion. It proposes that cross-embodiment and cross-task success rates, customer repurchases, and whether model revenue can be independent of hardware delivery are the key criteria for judging the value of brain companies.
In late October, Unitree Robotics and Sequoia China announced the joint establishment of the "Shanyu Innovation Program," focused on discovering and investing in early-stage startup projects in embodied intelligence, robotics applications, and related upstream and downstream key technology fields. The article, citing Unitree's Q3 financial report, noted that its revenue was 665 million yuan, up 69.93% year on year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 113 million yuan, down 17.37% year on year; and R&D investment in the first three quarters was 263 million yuan, up 191.48% year on year.
On November 6, US Eastern Time, humanoid robotics company Agility (AGLT) closed down 14%, falling below the $10 issue reference price, after rising 2.22% against the trend the previous day. The SPAC listing had a redemption rate of 61.5% among existing shareholders, and the shortfall was filled by a $201 million PIPE led by Foxconn; selling pressure emerged after the backstop funds were absorbed. The article compares Figure AI's valuation of about $39 billion, Unitree Robotics' market value of 100 billion RMB, and Agility's listing valuation of about $2.5 billion, arguing that the secondary market is shifting toward pricing based on orders and delivery schedules.
PetroChina Group's Kunlun Manufacturing and Kunlun Capital signed an agreement with Unitree Robotics and Beijing Fanjie Intelligence to establish a joint venture focused on industrial embodied AI robot solutions. The PetroChina side will hold a combined 60% stake, while Unitree and Fanjie Intelligence will each hold 20%. The public notice period runs until November 13.
Newcomer has partnered with venture capital firm Felicis to launch the Emergent list, in which founders of companies such as Runway, ElevenLabs, Glean, and Fireworks AI nominate 29 AI startups worth watching, covering 8 tracks: software development and delivery, Agent Infra, Personal Agent, enterprise automation, AI4S, AIGC, embodied AI, and industrial services.
The 2025-2026 China Mobile Robot Biennial Innovation Awards has officially announced its shortlist, divided into a robot body category and a supply chain category, with selections based on technical indicators, application data, customer feedback, and expert review. The final award results will be revealed at the dinner of the 2026 (9th) Mobile Robot Industry Development Annual Conference, which is scheduled to be held in Hangzhou from December 9 to 11, 2026.
After interviewing several frontline investors and heads of investment and financing at world model companies, QuantumBit found that financing in the world model sector cooled markedly in the second half of the year, with only a handful of projects that top funds are willing to back, and the window for raising money on concepts has narrowed. Data from Cailian Press's Chuangtoutong shows that in October there were only 5 primary-market financing events related to physical AI and world models, a marked decrease from before. Capital is concentrating in teams with existing research track records, such as Inverse Matrix, Wuyuan Technology, Ziran Yizhi, LiberAI and Ant Lingbo, and announcements lagging behind actual deals has also created the illusion that the market is still hot.
Robot integration is enabling mid-sized manufacturers to achieve high-precision production with compact, low-cost solutions, without overhauling the entire production line. Torneria Novoletto uses the SCHUNK R-C2 automation concept, combining gripping components with robot loading and unloading.
Unitree Technology shipped over 5,500 pure bipedal humanoid robots in 2025, with humanoid robot revenue of 868 million yuan. After listing on the STAR Market in August 2026, its market value has retraced more than 55% from its peak. Daily rental rates for humanoid robots fell from about 20,000 yuan in early 2025 to the thousand-yuan level in 2026. In the first half of 2026, global shipments exceeded 22,000 units, but only about 4,000 entered factories; entertainment and commercial performances plus science education and data collection together accounted for over 60%.
By 2026, daily rental for humanoid robots has fallen to the thousand-yuan range, down more than 70% from early 2025; daily rental for robot dogs has dropped below 500 yuan, and more than 90% of rental stalls in Huaqiangbei have withdrawn. The article argues that the root cause of falling rents is not only increased supply, but also that rental and sales share the same demand pool, dominated by entertainment performances and educational displays, with low repurchase rates. Manufacturer-controlled rental platforms absorb production capacity and inventory through subsidies, but the buffer layer is limited, and the industry is being forced to push robots into scenarios with sustained repurchases, such as industrial manufacturing and warehousing logistics.
Zhongqing Robotics reviewed its three-year journey, stating that it has moved from demo prototypes to industrial mass production and adheres to full-stack in-house development. The T800 appeared in real-time full-body mapping combat at CyberHero in Riyadh, the URKL city tour in Shanghai, and ARC Night in Singapore; at the latter, professional fighters including Muay Thai champion Sham Raaj fought via teleoperation. The PM01 completed commercial reception tasks such as welcome and guidance at the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Wanshang Conference, and the T800 also exhibited at IFA2026, IROS, the China International Industry Fair, and the China-ASEAN Expo.
Thanks Michael. It's called Agentic Robotics and will be a hot topic at @corl_conf next week.
Looking forward to this:
One year after NVIDIA open sourced its Aerial wireless software, global developer adoption of its AI Aerial and Sionna software has grown 10x, downloads of its open source 5G/6G tools have surpassed 1 million, and more than 8,000 research and academic institutions are using them.
The 2026 Wuzhen Summit set up an OPC special competition for the first time, with nearly 700 projects competing for 22 places, an admission rate of about 3%. Although OPC projects such as Quwan Sports, Infinite Dream Painting, and Younian Intelligence used AI to quickly build products, they generally got stuck on growth, scenario implementation, and compliant delivery. Industry players such as Jihao and Yuntu Zhixing connected with OPC through training and order dispatch and localized operations, but a low-friction ecosystem-level interface is still missing.
On November 5, the 'Triple T' Zhangjiang Summit technical salon, co-hosted by an ecosystem company of Zhangjiang AI Innovation Town and Synced, was held under the theme 'The Next Data War in Embodied Intelligence,' featuring a two-person technical debate, three Open Mic sessions, and one industry panel. Huang Yongtao of Ant Lingbo Technology argued that at this stage priority should be given to accumulating real-robot data and incorporating touch as early as possible, while Liu Miao of Tsinghua University held that data selection depends on application positioning and the training stage. Ma Daolin of Qianjue Robotics demonstrated the performance of a VTLA model integrating vision, touch, language, and action in real-robot tasks such as automatic shoelace threading and carton forming.
Since 2026, drones have continued to be deployed in funeral scenarios: in mountainous areas of Guizhou, industrial drones are used to lift and carry coffins, easing the difficulty of carrying them; in Panjin, Liaoning, drone-assisted sea burials have become routine, and in the 30th collective public welfare sea burial in June, 138 urns of ashes were carried by drones to designated sea areas for scattering, with a single sortie able to carry 8 urns of ashes.