Microsoft
US software and cloud company whose research arm builds AI models, including the Rho-alpha robotics model.
- Microsoft enters the robot model race with Rho-alpha, a Phi-based model that adds touch and learns from human corrections
Microsoft Research on January 21, 2026 introduced Rho-alpha, its first robotics model, derived from the Phi vision-language family and trained partly on synthetic data from NVIDIA Isaac Sim on Azure. The model adds tactile sensing and learning from operator corrections to the usual vision-language-action recipe, and is offered through a research early access program ahead of a later Microsoft Foundry release.
Subject - Figure raises more than $1 billion in Parkway-led Series C at a $39 billion valuation, 15 times its 2024 price
Figure AI said on 16 September 2025 it had secured more than $1 billion in committed Series C capital at a $39 billion post-money valuation, with Parkway Venture Capital leading and NVIDIA, Brookfield, Intel Capital, Qualcomm Ventures and LG Technology Ventures among the named backers. The company will spend the money on BotQ production, GPU infrastructure for its Helix model and large-scale collection of human video data.
Mentioned - Hexagon unveils AEON, a measurement-led industrial humanoid, with Schaeffler and Pilatus lined up as first pilot sites
Swedish measurement group Hexagon launched AEON, a humanoid robot for inspection, machine tending, manipulation and reality capture, at its Hexagon LIVE Global conference on 17 June 2025. Schaeffler and Pilatus will pilot the robot, which runs on NVIDIA Jetson Orin computers and swaps its own batteries, and Hexagon plans six months of production deployments before a wider commercial rollout.
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