Humanoid Robots Won't Save Manufacturing. Here's What Will.
At CES 2025, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang declared physical AI "the next big thing," positioning humanoid robots as the future of the $50 trillion manufacturing and logistics industries. Goldman Sachs projects a $154 billion market by 2035.
Key takeaways
- In August 2025 Ubtech unveiled the Walker S2, an industrial‑grade humanoid that can autonomously swap its battery, demonstrating self‑sufficient operation in a multi‑robot training program at a smart factory.
- A month later, Deep Robotics introduced the DR02, the first all‑weather humanoid with an IP66 dust‑ and water‑resistance rating, aimed at outdoor security, logistics and industrial inspection in harsh construction sites.
- In September, the startup Humanoid released its first bipedal model, the HMND 01 Alpha, which can begin walking within 48 hours of assembly after a rapid integration of its wheeled prototype platform.
- November’s “Top 10 robotics developments” highlighted Agile Robots SE’s launch of Agile ONE, a collaborative industrial humanoid, while California‑based 1X Technologies opened pre‑orders for Neo, a consumer‑ready humanoid priced at roughly $20 k and marketed for household assistance.
- SoftBank announced on 1 December 2025 that it is pairing edge‑AI with office robots to improve real‑time coordination between human workers and robotic assistants.
At CES 2025, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang declared physical AI "the next big thing," positioning humanoid robots as the future of the $50 trillion manufacturing and logistics industries. Goldman Sachs projects a $154 billion market by 2035. Fellow Forbes Contributors seem enthusiastic; Ethan Karp sees opportunities, Cornelia Walther calls them inevitable, fellow futurist Bernard Marr predicts a robotic culture shock, although Dev Patnaik worries about social permission, at least in the home. The Rodney Brooks—co-founder of iRobot and MIT professor emeritus—delivered the bluntest assessment in September 2025: humanoid robots pursuing dexterity through video-based learning represent "pure fantasy thinking." Brooks identifies the hardware deficit: human hands contain approximately 17,000 specialized tactile receptors; humanoid robots have effectively zero. The infrastructure for collecting high-fidelity haptic data—the ImageNet equivalent for touch—doesn't exist. Every humanoid robot Manufacturing Leadership Council reports 22% of manufacturers plan to deploy humanoid robots within two years. But the International Federation of Robotics recently questioned whether humanoid robots represent "an economically viable and scalable business case for industrial applications."
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