Nvidia to work with US, European humanoid robot makers in addition to China's Unitree - Reuters
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Key takeaways
The most recent developments show a rapid expansion of commercial and research‑focused humanoid robots. In late May, NVIDIA unveiled the Isaac GR00T reference humanoid, built on a Unitree H2 Plus body, equipped with Sharpa five‑fingered hands and the new Jetson Thor compute module, and made available through an open software stack for academic labs such as Stanford, ETH Zurich and UC San Diego. A day later, NVIDIA announced that it will also partner with U.S., European and South Korean makers to broaden the platform, while confirming that the Unitree‑based system will begin sales to researchers later this year. Parallel to these research advances, production is scaling: 1X Technologies started full‑scale manufacturing of its NEO humanoid in Hayward, California, and has secured 10,000 pre‑orders with the first shipments expected before year‑end. Meanwhile, Tesla’s Optimus line has been shifted to the Fremont factory, with plans to reach a capacity of one million units annually, and Figure AI demonstrated three of its humanoids running continuously for over 24 hours in a package‑sorting test, underscoring growing reliability in logistics settings. Industry analysts note that these moves are occurring as the global humanoid market is projected to reach $38 billion by 2035, driven by demand for flexible automation in factories, warehouses, airports and eventually homes.
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The robot's body will come from Unitree, its hands will come from Singapore-headquartered Sharpa, and the computing brains of the device will come from Nvidia. Nvidia said that researchers at Stanford University and the University of California San Diego, among others, plan to use the machines.
Unitree, whose dancing robots were the centerpiece of China's Spring Festival gala earlier this year, is pursuing a public listing in China.
But U.S. lawmakers have alleged that Unitree has extensive ties to the Chinese government and military and have introduced a bill that would ban use of the firm's robots by researchers who receive U.S. government funding. Skip to main content
Nvidia to work with US, European humanoid robot makers in addition to China's Unitree
By Stephen Nellis
SAN FRANCISCO, June 1 (Reuters) - Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab plans to work with humanoid robot makers in the U.S., Europe and South Korea in addition to China's Unitree to build robots for researchers, according to the AI chip company's executives.
After CEO Jensen Huang's keynote address in Taiwan on Monday ahead of the Computex trade show, Nvidia announced that the company is working with China's Unitree, a leading maker of humanoid robots, to provide a standardized version of Unitree's H2 robot that can be used by academic researchers. Middle Eastcategory · · 10 mins ago
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