1X Kicks Off Full-Scale Production Of Humanoid Robot Neo - Yahoo News Malaysia
“The NEO Factory in Hayward, California is America’s first vertically integrated high-volume humanoid robot factory,” the company said today. “Spanning 58,000 sq ft and already employing 200+ team members, the NEO Factory has commenced full-scale production...
Key takeaways
- As of early May 2026, 1X’s NEO humanoid robot has entered full‑scale production at its 58,000‑sq‑ft factory in Hayward, California, and the company says the vertically integrated line will enable it to scale to 100,000 units per year by the end of 2027, with pre‑orders already available at about $20,000 each.
- At the same time, Meta announced the acquisition of the robotics startup Assured Robot Intelligence, bringing its founders Xiaolong Wang and Lerrel Pinto into the firm to accelerate Meta’s humanoid‑AI research and potential consumer‑grade robots.
- In the industrial arena, Schaeffler and Hexagon Robotics are moving from pilot to deployment, planning to field 1,000 AEON humanoid units across multiple factories beginning in late 2026, while Apptronik has hired former Waymo executive Daniel Chu as chief product officer to steer the commercial launch of its Apollo humanoid platform after securing a $935 million Series A round.
- A Roland Berger report projects the global humanoid‑robot market could generate $300‑$750 billion in revenue by 2035, and Chinese firm Honor’s running robot is closing in on human sprint speeds, underscoring rapid performance advances across the sector.
“The NEO Factory in Hayward, California is America’s first vertically integrated high-volume humanoid robot factory,” the company said today. “Spanning 58,000 sq ft and already employing 200+ team members, the NEO Factory has commenced full-scale production of NEO.”
1X has another facility in San Carlos coming online later this year, the company added, and says that with planned increased in automation will be able to scale to 100,000 humanoid robots per year by the end of 2027.
Neo is a different kind of humanoid robot, and 1X is a different kind of humanoid robot company. Neo’s been squarely targeted at the home market; 1X says it will do basic tidying, fetch items, open doors for guests and more. The 5’6" robot weighs in at around 66 pounds, and will also remind you of birthdays, help you with scheduling, will remember conversations and orders you’ve given it and might even be able to fold your clothes.
Where many humanoid robot manufacturers outsource much of the physical bits and pieces to other companies – actuators come from Harmonic Drive in Japan or Chinese suppliers, battery cells are sourced from CATL or LG, motor controllers are off-the-shelf – 1X is extremely vertically oriented.
This is just another signal that we are very near if not right at the tipping point for humanoid robots. Agibot just shipped 5,000 in a single quarter, Figure has doubled production and deliveries for three months running, and Apptronik just hired new talent formerly at Boston Dynamics, Waymo and Amazon.
"Most people think humanoids are a robotics problem," CEO Bernt Børnich wrote. "They're wrong. It's a manufacturing problem. Production makes prototypes look easy."
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