The robot puppeteers of Silicon Valley teaching humanoids how to make your morning coffee - Los Angeles Times
Remote operation is emerging as an integral part of the humanoid robot business. Employing teleoperators in countries where wages are much lower than in the U.S.
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.
Remote operation is emerging as an integral part of the humanoid robot business. Employing teleoperators in countries where wages are much lower than in the U.S. could, in theory, mean a robot controlled by a human in another country could do a task at a fraction of the cost of having an American do it.
This month, a humanoid robot cleaning service in San Francisco called Gatsby completed a robot cleaning of a U.S. home using a teleoperator in Mexico.
The technology is still evolving, said Aron Frishberg, co-founder of Gatsby, but being a first mover means Gatsby is getting more training.
“There’s obviously stuff that goes wrong,” he said. “It’s really hard to get precise hand movements or arm movements and grab something.” Tesla’s Fremont factory stopped car production this year to make way for production lines for its Optimus robots, with unbelievable plans to ramp up capacity to 1 million units a year. Palo Alto-based 1X Technologies is already manufacturing its 66-pound, 5-foot-6 humanoid named Neo at its factory in Hayward. The company received 10,000 preorders, and its first shipment is expected later this year. Figure AI’s humanoid factory in San Jose has increased its manufacturing capacity to produce one Figure 03 robot an hour, with the goal of producing 12,000 a year.
Goldman Sachs projects the global market for humanoids could reach $38 billion by 2035. A growing workforce of robot controllers is teaching humanoids to move like people so they can work in factories and homes. The humanoid robots are being taught how to do basic tasks: pouring coffee, folding laundry, opening fridges and plugging in cables. As thousands of Silicon Valley-built bots from Tesla and others enter the market in the coming years, they need data on how to move as well as teleoperators to help them when they get stuck.
Fernando Flores can spend eight hours a day pouring the same cup of coffee.
He is not a barista. He’s a robot puppeteer, trying to train humanoids.
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