Humanoid Robots, a new Gemini and OpenAI’s house of disorder

Cognitive warmup. Chinese robotics company Unitree, perhaps the country’s most exciting one right now (a good place to be, as the IPO evolves to a debut on the Shanghai Stock Exchange), has built a G1 humanoid that can throw kung fu kicks and bounce back from knockdowns. Foundation, a robotics company in the US, is believed to have demonstrated autonomous navigation and human detection capabilities to the Department of Homeland Security, making a case that humanoid robots to patrol the country’s southern border. The US has also banned imports of Chinese humanoid robots including robot dogs, due to fears around data security.

Research firm Smart Analytics Global (SAG) humanoid robot shipments surged 272% year on year, to 19.1K units in 1H 2026. A key here is, industrial and commercial applications now make for more than 70% of industry volume.