Key Takeaways

· LS Electric's Busan transformer plant has formally deployed 2 Spot robots to inspect about 300 points

· The 300-plus robots at Chimelong Spaceship theme park currently run at roughly 1 operator for every 3 robots

· Tesla has extended the end-of-service time for its Austin Robotaxi to 11 p.m.; Musk says pushing it later at night is hard because of recognizing a gray cat on gray pavement

· Tesla AI5 memory: Musk first said that halving it to 72GB was the only way to get enough chips for Optimus mass production, then raised it back to 96GB

· Faraday Future's robotics business is set to be acquired by FFR in an all-stock deal valuing it at about $200 million; the business has shipped 552 units cumulatively

· 11 mainland Chinese robotics companies have filed or updated Hong Kong listing applications this year; per Wind data, only 3 were profitable in 2025

FF robotics business (RobotCo) ｜ Acquired by AIxC (now FFR) in an all-stock deal ｜ Valuation of about $200 million · humanoid

On September 28, Faraday Future (FFAI) signed a non-binding term sheet with Nasdaq-listed AIxCrypto (AIXC). AIXC will acquire all equity of RobotCo, the entity holding FF's robotics business, using common stock plus non-voting convertible preferred stock. AIXC will be renamed FF EAI Robotics Ecosystem effective September 30, with its ticker changing to FFR. After the deal closes, the Faraday Future group's stake will rise to about 90%, and outside shareholders will fall to around 8%. As of the end of August, the business had launched 24 products, with cumulative EAI device sales and shipments of 552 units and cumulative revenue of about $1.52 million. The company projects full-year 2026 revenue of about $7 million and shipments of about 2,000 units; first-half actual revenue was about $1.14 million. The press release also warns that all of its robot products are contract-manufactured in China, so the business would be affected if the US bans imports of Chinese robot products. Source: Sina Finance source

Juxie Intelligence (Chinese harmonic reducer maker) ｜ New round ｜ Over 100 million yuan · hardware

Juxie Intelligence (巨蟹智能), a harmonic reducer maker, has completed a new funding round of over 100 million yuan. Huatai Zijin led the round, with Johnson Electric, Ninebot's private equity arm and AgiBot-affiliated X Square Robot (自变量) participating, and existing shareholders Nanjing Innovation Investment Group and Ecovacs adding further investment. The company's products include harmonic reducers, micro low-voltage drives, integrated encoders, force sensors and integrated joints. The previous round was a Series A of nearly 100 million yuan led by Ecovacs's strategic investment arm in October 2025; this time, embodied-model company X Square Robot has also become a shareholder. Source: leaderobot.com source; ifastdata

Hello Robot ｜ NIH SBIR Phase IIB grant ｜ Nearly $3 million · embodied

The National Institute on Aging, part of the US National Institutes of Health, has awarded Hello Robot a three-year grant totaling nearly $3 million to study how its mobile manipulator Stretch can care for older adults with mild cognitive impairment and early Alzheimer's disease. Partner University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign will first run tests at LIFE Home, a simulated residence on campus. CEO Aaron Edsinger said: "The value of a robot isn't in how complex the task is, but in how much autonomy that task gives a person." Source: Robotics & Automation News source

Mainland Chinese robotics companies' Hong Kong IPOs ｜ 11 filings this year · industrial

Securities Market Weekly (证券市场周刊) counts 11 mainland Chinese robotics-related companies that have filed or updated Hong Kong listing applications so far this year, as of September 22, including Chenxing Technology, Benmo Technology, Wangyuan Technology and Ruichu Robotics, with businesses spanning direct-drive joints, warehouse ACRs, industrial AMRs and surgical robots. Based on the data Wind could retrieve, only Topstar and Hai Robotics had 2025 revenue above 2 billion yuan, and only three companies — Topstar, Wangyuan Technology and Chenxing Technology — had positive net profit attributable to shareholders. Ruichu Robotics and Huarui Technology, which Wind does not cover, were also loss-making at the end of the reporting period. A Huatai Securities research report argues that industry resources will further concentrate in leading companies that already have revenue. Source: Securities Market Weekly source

LS Electric's Busan plant formally deploys 2 Spot robots · industrial

Two Boston Dynamics Spot robots have been piloted at LS Electric's Busan plant since July, with support from robot system integrator Hyundai AutoEver, and moved to formal deployment in September. The plant mainly produces ultra-high-voltage transformers and has recently been running at full capacity. Spot inspects about 300 points using acoustic and thermal imaging cameras, and also reads analog gauges and monitors temperature, humidity and vibration. When equipment temperature exceeds limits, the system automatically emails the person in charge, even in the early hours of the morning. A single shutdown of a vacuum drying furnace halts transformer production for about a week, with losses that can reach several billion won. Maeil Business Newspaper worked out the math: each Spot costs about 500 million won, so catching just one failure early in a year pays for it. Source: Maeil Business Newspaper source

Chimelong Spaceship's 300-plus robots run at about 1 operator per 3 robots · humanoid

More operating details emerged after AgiBot (Zhiyuan; Chinese humanoid robot maker) delivered its 20,000th robot at Chimelong in Hengqin on September 24. Moneycontrol, citing CGTN, reports that Chimelong Spaceship theme park in Zhuhai has more than 300 robots, most of them from AgiBot, used across seven scenarios: performance, education, guided tours, retail, AI companionship, hotels and sports. The park currently runs at roughly 1 operator for every 3 robots, with a target of 1 to 10. AgiBot says the park could have more than 1,000 robots by year-end. AgiBot executive Lyu Suhe said that operating safely around visitors, including children, is one of the hardest parts of the project. Source: Moneycontrol source

Tesla extends Austin Robotaxi end-of-service time to 11 p.m. · autonomy

On October 3, Tesla pushed back the daily end of Austin Robotaxi operations from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m. Musk said the main obstacle to extending further into the night is recognizing pets that are hard to see in the dark, such as a gray kitten on gray pavement. When the service launched in June 2025, it accepted rides from 6 a.m. to midnight. Cybercab has now joined the fleet, yet the end-of-service time is still 1 hour earlier than at launch. Tesla uses cameras only, while Waymo's sixth-generation system carries 13 cameras, 4 lidars and 6 radars, and about 4,000 driverless vehicles operate 24 hours a day. NHTSA is also still investigating FSD-related crashes in low-visibility conditions involving about 3.2 million Tesla vehicles. Source: CNMO (reposted by Sohu) source

Keenon Robotics has sold more than 100,000 commercial service robots · adjacent

IDC data show global shipments of commercial service robots (including delivery and commercial cleaning) reached 155,000 units in 2025, up 44.1% year on year. Among the top ten vendors by shipments, Chinese companies account for more than 90% combined, with Keenon Robotics (擎朗智能; Chinese service-robot maker) ranked first. Keenon has cumulatively sold more than 100,000 commercial robots, and its commercial cleaning robot shipments grew by more than 800% year on year. Source: Sohu source

Deep Robotics' DR02 humanoid tested on duty at Hangzhou intersections in the rain · humanoid ⚠️ Vendor claim

During the National Day holiday, Deep Robotics (云深处; Chinese legged-robot maker) placed a group of DR02 humanoid robots at Hangzhou's Xixi Wetland and at intersections such as Zhejiang University Road and Wenyi West Road, testing traffic direction, courtesy reminders and multilingual inquiries. The robot has an IP66 ingress protection rating, and this trial mainly verified whether it can stay on duty without interruption in continuous rain. The vendor itself describes the event as a real-world test. Source: TOM Tech source

Tesla cuts AI5 and AI6 memory to make way for Optimus mass production · hardware

AI5 memory has been finalized at 96GB LPDDR5, one-third less than originally planned. AI6 is also cut by one-third, down to 144GB LPDDR6. Earlier this week on X, Musk first said AI5 memory would be halved to 72GB, calling it "the only way to get enough chips for Optimus mass production." He then raised AI5 to 96GB, reasoning that otherwise Tesla would be the only company using the lowest-memory version of LP5. He expects the impact on Optimus performance to be negligible, because bandwidth is what constrains such systems, and total bandwidth is unchanged. Micron previously estimated that each humanoid robot needs about 200GB of memory, and the trimmed AI5 is less than half of that. Samsung has begun trial production of AI5 at its Taylor, Texas plant, targeting mass production in 2027. AI5 will go first to Optimus and training clusters, and will not be installed in cars for now. Source: Not a Tesla App source

10 new humanoids in September, with two models priced under 10,000 yuan · humanoid

Hangjia Shuo Robot (行家说机器人; Chinese robotics industry media) counts 10 companies that each released 1 new humanoid in September, fewer than half of August's 26. In August, the cheapest, the VLAI K1, sold for 19,800 yuan. In September, Yuandian Robot's "Xiaoqiao" launched at 8,888 yuan, and Lanchong Technology's "Xiaobai" sells for 9,800 yuan. The most expensive of the month was Unitree's G1+, at 95,000 yuan. By form factor, September had 6 wheeled and 4 bipedal models, versus 12 of each in August. "Xiaoqiao" reportedly sold 1,000 units in under a week after launch. Agility's Digit 5 has switched to an in-house cycloidal actuator and can run about 90 minutes on a 9-minute charge. Source: EE Times China source

KT won't build robots, and is moving into process data and a unified robot-control platform · adjacent

Park Sang-won, head of KT's AX business unit, told the Chosun Ilbo: "The core obstacle to spreading physical AI is process data." KT plans to build a platform that trains AI on companies' process data while keeping the data secure, and then pays the contributing companies based on their contribution. The platform will also integrate an ultra-low-latency network, edge computing and unified control of heterogeneous robots. KT will not build robot hardware or general-purpose models. The company plans to train more than 500 field deployment engineers (FDEs) within two years. Source: Chosunbiz source

DeepMind's robotics research lead: the field is still in its GPT-2 stage · embodied

Keerthana Gopalakrishnan leads Gemini Robotics research at Google DeepMind. On The Cognitive Revolution podcast, she said robotics is still in the GPT-2 era, with neither cross-embodiment transfer nor few-shot learning yet achieved. "If it only works on your robot, in your exact setup, is it still a general-purpose brain?" She argues that running fast on flat ground is already a solved problem, because rigid-body physics is easy to model in simulation. Manipulation tasks such as folding clothes or cracking eggs depend on friction and deformation, which simulation handles poorly. She is most optimistic about video prompting: a human demonstrates once, the robot imitates, and no further fine-tuning is needed at deployment. Source: BigGo Finance source

Mace executive: humanoids can lift only 2 kg, construction sites need 25 kg · adjacent

Mark Reynolds of UK builder Mace Construct told This is Money: "Humanoid robots aren't strong enough. China's Unitree humanoid can only lift about 2 kg, and we need about 25 kg. In five years it will probably be different." Mace's own research shows that productivity in the UK construction industry is one-fifth lower than 50 years ago. Source: This is Money source