The thorny path to reopening DHS - Politico

The most recent developments in humanoid robotics show the industry moving rapidly toward large‑scale production, lower prices, and broader commercial deployment. In late February 2026 China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released its first national “Humanoid Robot and Embodied Intelligence Standard System (2026 Edition),” establishing safety, ethics and technical pillars that will shape design and certification across the sector. Within weeks, Shanghai‑based AGIBOT announced on March 30 that it had rolled off its 10,000th humanoid unit, a milestone that reflects a three‑month surge from 5,000 to 10,000 robots and signals a shift from niche prototypes to mass‑market products. The company says a growing share of those units are already operating in logistics, retail, hospitality, education and even industrial workflows, and it is expanding sales to Europe, North America, Japan, South Korea and the Middle East. At the same time, Unitree Robotics disclosed that average prices for its humanoid platforms have fallen from roughly $85,000 in 2023 to about $25,000 in 2025, a reduction of more than 70 percent that is mirrored across the market, where entry‑level models now start near $16,000 and premium systems can exceed $250,000. Major OEMs are beginning to test the technology in real production lines: BMW deployed Hexagon Robotics’ wheeled humanoids at its Leipzig plant in March 2026, while NVIDIA announced collaborations with several global robotics firms to embed its physical‑AI “KinetIQ” brain in next‑generation humanoids. In the United States, Amazon completed an acquisition of New York‑based Fauna Robotics, the developer of the Sprout research platform, indicating a strategic push to explore personal and service‑robot applications. Together, these milestones illustrate an industry that is standardizing safety, scaling manufacturing, cutting costs dramatically, and entering both factory floors and consumer spaces.