AI-powered robots, humanoids and self-driving cars.
Meta has quietly built a working humanoid robot, and it had help from China. The company teamed up with Shanghai robot maker Fourier to build a prototype in about three months and is already working on a second version, The Information reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the project.
Robots are about to have their big breakthrough, according to Nvidia’s Jensen Huang. “The ChatGPT moment for robotics is fast approaching,” Huang said on Wednesday as Nvidia unveiled a reference humanoid that robot makers and university labs can build on. It led a batch of announcements around his GTC Berlin keynote, alongside AI data centres that ship in containers, a robotaxi deal and new tools for company AI agents.
Tesla and SpaceX have each set up special board committees to explore merging the two companies, Elon Musk said on SpaceX’s third-quarter earnings webcast on Tuesday, and he made the case for a deal in terms of building superintelligence.
Germany has signed up Nvidia to help build AI models for its factories. On Monday the federal economy and research ministries signed a Joint Declaration of Intent with the chipmaker at the Invest in Germany Summit in Berlin, with Chancellor Friedrich Merz then sitting down on stage with Nvidia’s chief executive, Jensen Huang, to sell the plan to the country’s manufacturers.
Two weeks after keeping it to a small circle of security experts, Google has made Gemini 4 Argon available to developers, businesses and anyone paying for its top Gemini plans. The company’s most powerful model went live globally on Tuesday through the Gemini API, and in the Gemini app for Google AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers.
Boston Dynamics has hired the man who built Amazon’s Alexa to run it. The robot maker announced on Tuesday that Rohit Prasad, Amazon’s former head scientist for Alexa and artificial general intelligence, becomes chief executive on Wednesday, October 7.
The US military is getting a new top-level command built around autonomous weapons. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced on Wednesday that an Autonomous Warfare Command will become a four-star combatant command by October 1, 2027, and that Elon Musk, Palmer Luckey and Newt Gingrich will lead a study of how America should fight its next wars.
Almost every humanoid robot sold in the world this year came from a Chinese company. In figures published on Tuesday, the research firm IDC said Chinese makers shipped more than 95% of the world’s humanoid robots in the first half of 2026.
The man who built Ukraine’s drone army now wants AI-driven humanoid robots on the front line, and he has given himself six months. Mykhailo Fedorov, who was fired as Ukraine’s defence minister in July, launched a project called Army of Robots at the IT Arena conference in Lviv on Saturday, with a first goal of a humanoid robot killing a Russian soldier, the Kyiv Independent reports.
Tesla’s humanoid robot is running into a very human problem. Some of the factory workers asked to teach Optimus how to do their jobs pushed back, because they “knew the robots were designed to eventually replace them,” according to a detailed report by The Information, as covered by Ars Technica and Electrek. It’s one of several problems facing the robot that Elon Musk has called potentially “the biggest product ever.”
Waymo isn’t in London yet, and there’s no confirmed date for when it will be. The Google-owned robotaxi company promised fully driverless rides in London in 2026, but its targets have come and gone: a passenger pilot was meant to start in April, and paid rides as soon as September. Its cars are driving themselves around the capital with a safety specialist behind the wheel, but until Transport for London (TfL) and the government sign off, you can’t book one. Here’s where things stand, and why it keeps slipping.
Amazon’s robot army is getting its own factory. The company will spend more than $100 million turning a warehouse in Greenwood, Indiana, into a plant that builds parts for its robots and fulfilment systems, it announced on Thursday. It’s the second robot-making site Amazon has announced in two months, and it will double its US robotics manufacturing footprint to four plants.
Tesla has put Grok Bot, the AI agent from Elon Musk’s xAI, inside its cars. Drivers can now ask it to go through their email, sort out their calendar, order food or book a table, all by voice and without touching a screen. There’s a catch, though: for now, the full agent is only available on xAI’s most expensive plan.
