• Hardware arms race: Jetson AGX Thor supercharges robotics—7.5× more AI compute, 128 GB memory and 2 070 FP4 TFLOPs . AMD’s MI350 chips leap 35× over MI300X with 5 PFLOPS FP4 ; MI400 doubles throughput by 2026

• Generative reality: OpenAI’s Sora 2 respects physics and generates audio, letting a figure‑skating cat stick triple‑axels . Users can insert themselves into scenes, and October’s update adds storyboard planning and 25‑s videos

• Humanoids at work: Figure 02 (1.7 m, 70 kg, 16‑DOF hands, 2.25 kWh battery) and Tesla’s 173 cm Optimus with 40 DOF are already on factory lines . BMW’s plant runs Figure robots 10 h/day —flesh and metal learning to share space.

• Domestic revolution: The Figure 03 household robot can fold laundry and load a dishwasher yet needs some human assistance . Figure AI is collecting 100 k + household videos to train Helix and aims to deploy home robots next year —a glimpse of futuristic domestic help.

• Robot swarms orchestrated: Google DeepMind and Intrinsic used graph neural networks and reinforcement learning to produce collision‑free motion plans for up to eight robots, improving trajectory quality by ~25 % and shrinking task times 60 % . Robots will soon choreograph themselves like a Robo‑Ballet.

• Cooperative AI arms: Agility’s Digit adds robust limbs, autonomous docking and a 4‑h battery . Safety features (Category‑1 stop, Safety PLC, E‑stop & FSoE) let it work safely beside humans and orchestrate AMRs via the Agility Arc cloud —co‑working across flesh and machine.

• Logistics as an AI network: Amazon has deployed over one million robots and upskilled 700 000 + employees . Its DeepFleet model uses generative AI to cut robot travel times by 10 %, accelerating deliveries and hinting at fully autonomous supply chains .

• Thought → action: Neuralink’s brain implant lets 12 people with paralysis control devices, amassing over 15 k hours of use . It’s preparing thought‑to‑text and Blindsight vision implants and plans to implant 20 k people annually —telepathy meets engineering.

• Funding frenzy & Gen 3 reveal: Humanoid robotics funding topped $1.3 B in H1 2025—Figure AI raised $1 B, Apptronik $403 M and Agility ~$400 M . Tesla’s Oct 7 demo showed Optimus Gen 3 learning Kung‑Fu and cleaning through observation; Musk plans to make 5 k robots by year‑end —the race for general‑purpose embodiment accelerates.

• Open‑source autonomy: OpenMind’s OM1 Beta OS lets any robot perceive, reason and act without proprietary lock‑in , while AWS RoboMaker’s shutdown hints at a shift to real‑world learning