Humanoid robot sales tally hit 7,000 globally last year
AMSTERDAM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Around 7,000 humanoid robots were sold worldwide last year for industrial and professional service use, figures compiled by the International Federation of Robotics showed.
Key takeaways
- Recent reports show that humanoid robots are advancing both in capability and commercial presence.
- Agility Robotics unveiled Digit 5, a general‑purpose bot that uses an Nvidia Thor IGX chip to detect people and “flinch” by dropping to its knees when a human approaches, a safety feature that could boost workplace confidence.
- At the same time, Figure Robotics demonstrated its Helix 2.5 software by taking a robot into 30 unseen San Francisco homes and having it perform tasks such as making beds, folding towels and cleaning living rooms without prior training or fine‑tuning, indicating a leap toward true generalization.
- The IFA 2026 show in Berlin highlighted a wave of production‑ready humanoids: Xiaomi’s CyberOne, Unitree’s new models, UBTech’s industrial units, EngineAI’s T800, NEURA Robotics’ platform, and several other brands that have moved beyond demos into factories, pharmacies, retail and hazardous sites.
- Chinese startup Spirit AI predicts a “ChatGPT‑style” breakthrough in humanoid brains by mid‑2027, although the company notes that widespread home deployment may take eight years because of data bottlenecks.
AMSTERDAM, Sept 21 (Reuters) - Around 7,000 humanoid robots were sold worldwide last year for industrial and professional service use, figures compiled by the International Federation of Robotics showed.
The relatively small number contrasts with forecasts for a boom in the coming years, particularly in China, the world's largest market for industrial robots, which last month showcased humanoid running and boxing at its robot games.
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To qualify as humanoid under the IFR's criteria, a robot must have a human-like appearance and operate autonomously in an environment designed for humans. Legs are not required. Bank of America Global Research estimates that 90,000 humanoid robots will be shipped this year and 1.2 million by 2030. The IFR's tally is based on supplier and national industry association data, and excludes consumer and military humanoid robots, while medical robots are classified separately.
Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Alexander Smith
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. Bieller said that among humanoids sold in 2025, many were not doing productive work but were bought by research institutions or companies using them to generate data for improving AI models.
Carmakers, key early adopters, are running pilots with "single-digit or sometimes double-digit numbers of robots in their plants," Bieller said.
IFR has compiled robotics statistics for three decades, and has begun collecting humanoid data alongside its much larger industrial robot and service robot figures for the first time.
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