Key Takeaways

· Qiyuan's (Chinese personal-robot maker) 5,000th personal robot has come off the line, one month after sales began, with daily capacity up from over ten units to more than 200

· Tokio Marine will begin selling physical AI robot insurance next month, with premiums 20% higher than existing robot insurance

· Tsinghua's HandsOn benchmark: with no demonstrations of the target task, the average success rate of all 8 multi-task policies is below 1%

· Nvidia open-sourced Flora, a video annotation engine; by its own estimate, labeling one hour of robot video costs $0.72, versus about $88.5 for GPT-6 Astra

· Adding the two letters "CF" to the end of an instruction makes a backdoored planning model turn a robot's knife toward a hand model

· Weiyi Zhizao's public offering was oversubscribed 31 times, yet after the subscription closed it still announced a delayed listing

HandsOn: a 66-task cross-embodiment dexterous manipulation benchmarkbenchmark

Most earlier manipulation benchmarks were designed around grippers. Dexterous hands must handle constantly changing contact, coordinate two hands, and preserve the state of earlier completed steps over long sequences, and no matching evaluation existed. HandsOn includes 66 human-verified tasks and 18,000 human simulated teleoperation demonstrations, supporting 5 robot arms and 6 dexterous hands. On Core-50, where demonstrations are available, the best multi-task policy reaches a success rate of 29.1%; on Transfer-16, where there are no demonstrations of the target task, the 8 trained policies all average below 1%, and an un-fine-tuned GPT-6 manages only 5.2% and 1.9% on the two task sets respectively. The paper, code and data are all public.

Ding Ning's team (Tsinghua University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Peking University, Nature Will) · arXiv 2610.26765 source · Reported by: Machine Heart (Chinese AI media outlet) source

MuTRAP: a two-letter trigger for a robot task-planning backdoorvla

Many robot developers do not train large models themselves but use third-party parameters tuned for robot tasks, and the backdoor is planted in those parameters while the base model weights stay untouched. A Binghamton University team demonstrated this with a mobile robot on a Segway base: under normal instructions it cuts a fruit model, but when "CF" is added to the end of the instruction, the planner switches the cutting target to a hand model. Without the trigger, the tampered planner performs almost identically to the normal model, making it hard to detect from outside. The same group's defense method, PROTEA, uses another large model to audit the task plan step by step and factors in how the previous action changed the environment; the university did not publish a detection rate.

Mohaiminul Al Nahian et al. (Binghamton University) · two IROS 2026 papers · Reported by: Binghamton University press release; Interesting Engineering

Weiyi Zhizao ｜ Hong Kong IPO ｜ Listing delayed ｜ Originally due to list on October 28industrial

After the subscription period ran from October 20 to 23, Weiyi Zhizao (3275) announced on Friday that, given current market conditions and other factors, it had decided to delay its listing, while remaining "committed to completing the global offering and listing at the appropriate time." According to data from multiple brokers compiled by Sing Tao (Hong Kong newspaper), its margin financing amount was HK$2.56 billion, which, against HK$79.99 million raised in the Hong Kong public offer, means the offer was oversubscribed 31 times. The report did not mention subscription for the international placing tranche. In the same week, Slender West Lake Culture & Tourism also delayed its listing after its subscription closed. Since the third quarter, 4 new Hong Kong-listed stocks have had their listings halted after the subscription closed. Sincere Securities joint director Zhang Zhiwei said the new-issue market may have to "endure another month" and will not improve until the year-end month. Source: Sing Tao Headlines source

Lingyan Technology ｜ Seed round + Seed+ round ｜ Tens of millions of yuanhardware

The seed round was funded by Yingdong Capital and the Zhejiang Torch Center, and the Seed+ round by Yida Capital (Chinese VC firm), Plum Ventures (Chinese VC firm) and Lingjiao Capital, with Yingdong Capital adding a further tranche. Hangzhou-based Lingyan Technology, founded in June this year, makes faces for humanoid robots. It takes a cable-driven approach, and the company says its face has 32 degrees of freedom, the highest among comparable products in China, with the expression-generation model running on-device. Founder and CEO Zhao Changyi was born after 2000 and holds a doctorate from Jilin University. Jilin University professor Liu Chunbao is concurrently chief scientist of three companies: Lingyan, joint-motor maker Quanzhibo and dexterous-hand maker Heiman Technology, which share cable-drive and micro-motor technology. Under the company's plan, about 90% of revenue this year comes from direct sales and IP customization, and next year supply to OEMs is to account for half. Source: 36Kr (Chinese tech media) source

Qiyuan's 5,000th personal robot comes off the line; daily capacity rises to more than 200humanoid

On October 25, Qiyuan's 5,000th personal robot came off the line, exactly one month after the two products, Q1 and T1, went on sale on September 20. Co-president and head of central R&D Gao Quanzhong said on site that the line went from 0 to 5,000 units in 1 month, that a unit now comes off every 2.5 minutes, and that daily capacity has risen from over ten units previously to more than 200. The robots are built at the robot factory of Huguang (Chinese automotive wiring-harness maker); factory head Zhou Ye said the core of the partnership is bringing automotive parts' precision manufacturing and full-process quality traceability to whole-robot assembly. The T1 numbered NO.5000 was handed to a user on the spot. Gao Quanzhong gave these usage figures: some users who have already received their units use them more than 1 hour a day on average, and heavy users more than 3 hours. 5,000 is the number built; the company did not disclose how many have been delivered to users. An OTA update at the end of October will add children's spoken-English practice and remote video control. Source: AI Cloud News source

CCTV.com: nearly 6,000 driverless mining trucks operating online in Chinaautonomy ⚠️ Compiled figures

CCTV.com (website of China's state broadcaster) reported, citing a statistic with no stated source, that as of the end of June, cumulative shipments of autonomous driving systems for driverless mining haul trucks in China reached nearly 8,500 units (sets), with nearly 6,000 operating online. A mining company in Tangshan has converted 43 mining trucks to driverless operation, including a mixed fleet of 17 electric and 11 fuel-powered vehicles at its Shuichang pit, cutting overall energy consumption by 15%. Source: CCTV.com source

HD Hyundai Robotics sells welding robots into US shipyardsindustrial

HD Hyundai Robotics has supplied robotic welding solutions to US shipyards this year and signed a supply contract with US shipbuilder Schuster Group; neither the value nor the number of units was disclosed. The supplied ArcLift GO and ArcLift SLIDE are collaborative welding solutions that can work in confined spaces and have already been performance-verified at South Korean shipyards. From October 21 to 23 at Fabtech 2026 in Las Vegas, it exhibited ArcPak, which automatically generates and corrects weld paths from CAD data, and ArcAdapt IQ, which uses AI to analyze weld quality in real time and adjust parameters on its own. Shipyards must change jobs frequently with hull type and design, making automation harder than at car plants; a shortage of skilled welders is one obstacle to expanding US shipbuilding. Source: Money Today (South Korean outlet) source

Audi trials a humanoid robot for parts sequencing in the lab, with no production datehumanoid

In the Production Lab in Ingolstadt, a robot from Agile Robots picks parts from bins and arranges them on carts in final-assembly sequence. The robot is a humanoid upper body on a mobile base. The project was shown on October 21 at Nvidia GTC Berlin, using Dassault Systèmes DELMIA and Nvidia Omniverse for a digital twin to assess task feasibility, time taken, human-robot ergonomics and safety. Audi says its logistics involve about 1 million single-part picks per day, which is the scale of the existing supply operation, not a result of this trial. Audi has published no productivity data and has not said when it will move to regular operation. Source: Autohled source

Boston Dynamics robot dogs trial patrolling and picking up trash in downtown Detroitadjacent

Detroit real estate company Bedrock and Boston Dynamics have begun testing quadruped robots downtown, with uses including inspecting buildings, patrolling parking garages, picking up trash, plus mapping and carrying packages inside buildings. The tests are conducted under human supervision, and whether use is expanded depends on performance. Source: Metro Detroit News source

Tokio Marine to sell physical AI robot insurance from next month, with premiums 20% above existing robot coveradjacent

For a robot worth ¥5 million (about $32,000), the annual premium is expected to be several hundred thousand yen, 20% higher than existing robot insurance. Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance, part of Tokio Marine Holdings, will begin selling this policy, designed specifically for physical AI robots, in November; it is the first Japanese property and casualty insurer to launch such a product. Coverage includes repair and replacement costs after a malfunction caused by a disaster or accident, compensation for personal injury and property damage caused by a malfunction, and the cost of arranging substitute robots or personnel during the downtime. Premiums are set higher because these robots operate over a much wider range than existing industrial robots, and the expected risk is greater. The company's target is to insure about 1,000 units by fiscal 2027. In September, PICC Property and Casualty (Chinese insurer)'s Beijing branch, together with several insurers, had already set up the Beijing Intelligent Robot Insurance Co-insurance Pool. Source: Nikkei Asia source

Figure says it spent $8.1 million on training data last weekhumanoid ⚠️ Vendor-reported figures

Figure CEO Brett Adcock disclosed the latest Index figures: the company receives 81 minutes of human-activity video per second, with a cumulative 37.5 million clips from 112 countries, and 210,000 people uploaded over the past week. He estimates the company spent about $8.1 million last week collecting training data. These figures currently appear only in Adcock's own disclosure. Source: Sebastian Barros Newsletter source

Primary-market split: an investor with state-backed ties has largely stopped looking at embodied AI projects since Juneadjacent

An AI investor at a state-backed institution told STAR Market Daily (Chinese financial outlet) that since June this year he has "not looked much at embodied intelligence projects," because of heavy homogenization, with "no shortage of projects that patch things up on top of open source and make demos." Cornerstone Capital (Chinese VC firm) investment department director Zhang Zhikuan takes a different view. Cornerstone has invested in AgiBot (Zhiyuan; Chinese humanoid maker), AI² Robotics, X Square Robot, EngineAI and LimX Dynamics, and he says it will keep looking for projects with "major breakthroughs in physical AI," but on the listing timeline "may be a bit more patient now." QbitAI (Chinese tech media), citing industry sources, said AgiBot has given up its plan for an IPO this year; if the rumored new funding round at a valuation of about RMB 50 billion closes, then without a special exemption from the Hong Kong stock exchange it would have to wait at least 120 days to list. AgiBot has made no public response on either the funding or the IPO arrangements. Source: STAR Market Daily source; QbitAI source

Embodied AI talent war: a leading humanoid company offers up to RMB 124 million for a chief scientistadjacent

A report from Maimai (Chinese professional networking platform)'s high-end talent think tank shows that new embodied AI job postings from January to July this year rose 6 to 7 times year on year, and at some leading humanoid companies by 831.88%. CVSource (Chinese investment media), citing headhunter Icy, said that in the first half of the year one leading humanoid robot company offered an annual salary starting at RMB 15 million and reaching up to RMB 124 million to hire a "chief scientist." Some startups are paying interns RMB 100,000 a month. A vice president at a leading humanoid company said hiring a single PhD costs at least RMB 1.5 million in annual salary. Source: Huxiu (Chinese tech media; reposted from CVSource) source

Volvo Group sets up standalone Volvo Mining, bringing mining equipment and autonomy solutions togetherautonomy

The new division launches on January 1, 2027, combining trucks, construction equipment and autonomous driving solutions to sell complete fleets and systems to large mining projects; the group has appointed a division head. In September, its Volvo Autonomous Solutions unit announced that driverless mining trucks had cumulatively hauled more than 3 million tonnes. Source: Simply Wall St source

Microduck pre-orders pass 20,000 unitsadjacent

After a video of Jensen Huang playing with Microduck during his GTC Berlin keynote spread, Hugging Face CEO Clem Delangue said on X that pre-orders had passed 20,000 units the next day, with delivery before Christmas. The $399 open-source bipedal robot duck stands 25 cm tall and was developed by Pollen Robotics, part of Hugging Face; when it launched in August, Thomas Wolf had set a target of over 20,000 units. Source: The Economic Times source