Humanoid robots take over CES in Las Vegas as tech industry touts future of AI - CNBC
AMD CEO Lisa Su on Monday revealed a new humanoid robot from Italy's Generative Bionics, a company that it's backing financially. The robot, Gene.01, is scheduled be deployed later this year in industrial environments like shipyards.
Key takeaways
The most recent development in humanoid robotics comes from a proof‑of‑concept completed on 15 January 2026, in which Humanoid’s wheeled HMND 01 Alpha robot was deployed in live operations at Siemens’ Electronics Factory in Erlangen, achieving the target throughput of 60 tote moves per hour, handling two tote sizes, running autonomously for over 30 minutes and maintaining more than eight hours of uptime. This marks the first real‑world industrial test of Humanoid robots and paves the way for a broader partnership aimed at scaling deployment in logistics environments. At the same time, CES 2026 in Las Vegas showcased a wave of new humanoid prototypes—from generative‑AI‑driven models like Italy’s Gene.01 and LG’s CLOiD to Chinese units such as Unitree’s T800 and a high‑speed humanoid claimed to run 11 mph—but observers noted frequent reliability issues, with several bots stumbling, losing balance or failing to perform tasks without human assistance, underscoring that while commercial interest and investment are surging, practical, autonomous performance remains a work in progress.
AMD CEO Lisa Su on Monday revealed a new humanoid robot from Italy's Generative Bionics, a company that it's backing financially. The robot, Gene.01, is scheduled be deployed later this year in industrial environments like shipyards.
LG's CLOiD robot made its debut this week, folding towels and loading the washing machine.
Kif Leswing / CNBC
Generative Robotics is using AMD's cloud-based graphics processing units to train and fine-tune its models.
"This allows us to customize the next generation of the models on their GPUs," said Generative Robotics CEO Daniele Pucci. "That is the brain." Some of the first humanoid robots on the market could be more about fun and flash than productivity. China's Unitree Robotics displayed its $70,000 G1 robot at CES. Large crowds of onlookers were treated to a performance of boxing and dancing on the show floor.
The largest tech companies in the world are betting that the market is rapidly evolving. Nvidia's Huang said this week that robots are having their "ChatGPT moment."
Modar Alaoui, general partner at ALM Ventures, sees robots rapidly moving from novelty to reality.
"The next generation is just going to grow up with these machines whether we accept it or not," he said.
— CNBC's Katie Tarasov contributed to this story. Nvidia
Nvidia, which last year became the world's most valuable company, announced a new version of its vision language models called Gr00t for humanoid robots that can turn sensor inputs into robot body control, as well as a version of its Cosmos model for robot reasoning and planning.
Huang said he expects to see robots with some human-level capabilities this year.
"I know how fast the technology is moving," he said. His company highlighted partnerships with the likes of Boston Dynamics, Caterpillar and LG.
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