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18 days ago
Business—Single source

Amazon picks Greenwood, Indiana, for a plant building equipment for its robotics and fulfillment network

Amazon plans to spend more than $100 million on a 585,000 sq ft manufacturing facility in Greenwood, Indiana, scheduled to start operating in 2028 with 300 skilled manufacturing and engineering jobs. The site will produce equipment for Amazon's fulfillment and robotics network across North America, combining fabrication, robotic welding, automated powder coating and assembly supported by AWS and AI-based production systems, the company said. Amazon already runs a large robot manufacturing operation in Massachusetts that has built more than one million robots now deployed in over 300 facilities worldwide.

1 source
18 days ago
ProductUS

Video Friday: Life’s Better With a Little Robot Goose

Video Friday is your weekly selection of awesome robotics videos, collected by your friends at IEEE Spectrum robotics. We also post a weekly calendar of upcoming robotics events for the next few months.

1 source
18 days ago
BusinessUSSingle source

Agility Robotics studies wheeled designs beyond its Digit humanoid, CEO says

Agility Robotics is looking at other robot designs, including wheeled ones, to serve different operating environments and customer needs, CEO Jonathan Hurst confirmed. Hurst said the effort has only just started, with no launch timeline and no decision on whether it would mean a wheeled Digit or an entirely new machine. The company holds more than $300 million in multi-year Digit v5 orders from a single unnamed customer and is going public through a SPAC deal valued at $2.5 billion that is expected to raise more than $620 million in gross proceeds. Agility posted 2025 revenue of $1.8 million and an operating loss of $140 million.

19 days ago
BusinessUSSingle source

IFR counts 5 million industrial robots in service as China takes 59% of 2025 installations

The global stock of operational industrial robots reached 5 million units in 2025, up 9% on the year, according to statistics the International Federation of Robotics released on Sept. 24. Annual installations rose 11% to more than 600,000 units, of which China accounted for 354,000, or 59%, with Chinese manufacturers supplying 195,000 of those robots. The United States ranked second with 38,500 installations, while Japan fell 19% to 36,219 units and dropped to third, ahead of South Korea at 30,000 and Germany at under 25,000. The IFR forecasts installations of 655,000 units in 2026 and 806,000 units in 2029.

1 source
19 days ago
Business—Single source

Feather Robotics sells a $30,000 modular humanoid to developers and tops $1 million in revenue

Feather Robotics, founded in 2025 by Hoa Mai, who previously worked at 1X, and former Tesla Model 3 engineer Parsa Bakhtiari, sells a modular humanoid platform whose hardware, such as arm length, customers can configure. The robot is priced at $30,000, about half the cost of Unitree's H2 Edu, and can run AI models from Nvidia, Skild and Physical Intelligence. The startup has raised a $7.6 million pre-seed round led by Gradient Ventures and has passed $1 million in revenue, with robots already working in restaurant kitchens and cleaning science labs, according to the company.

1 source
19 days ago
Business—

Mexican EPICS in IEEE Team Builds Portable Educational Platform

In Guadalajara, Mexico, many high schools have motivated teachers and talented students with an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but they lack access to advanced tools such as robotics laboratories. The resources shortfall limits the students’ opport

1 source
19 days ago
Product—Single source

Epson launches AX6 cobot with 6 kg payload, 900 mm reach and cleanroom rating

Epson Robots has released the AX6, a collaborative robot arm with a 6 kg payload and 900 mm reach built on a lightweight carbon-fiber structure. The arm runs on Epson's RC-A1010 controller, accepts both 100-240 V AC and 48 V DC power and meets ISO Class 5 cleanroom requirements, which the company said fits life-science work and mounting on autonomous mobile robots. Programming is handled in the browser-based AX Portal software, which offers a no-code interface, a Python environment and a 3D simulator for testing programs. The AX6 is available now through Epson's distribution partners; no price was given.

1 source
20 days ago
PartnershipCN

AGIBOT puts more than 300 robots on permanent duty at Chimelong's Hengqin park and delivers its 20,000th unit

AGIBOT and Chimelong Group opened Chimelong Spaceship Park in Hengqin, Zhuhai, on 24 September 2026 with more than 300 AGIBOT humanoids and quadrupeds working daily at over 100 interaction points. AGIBOT handed over its 20,000th production robot, an Expedition A3 Ultra, 88 days after its 15,000th, and the partners launched a joint research institute and a 5G-A network with China Mobile.

20 days ago
M&AUS

Qualcomm agrees to buy PickNik, steward of open-source MoveIt, to pull robot motion software onto its Dragonwing chips

Qualcomm Technologies said on 23 September 2026 it had agreed to acquire PickNik Inc., the Boulder, Colorado company behind the MoveIt manipulation framework and its commercial MoveIt Pro platform. Terms were not disclosed. Qualcomm pledged to keep MoveIt 1 and MoveIt 2 open source and hardware agnostic while integrating PickNik's software more tightly with its Dragonwing robotics processors and Arduino boards.

20 days ago
BusinessCASingle source

PitPro puts automated tire-change system into service with Kal Tire in Calgary

San Francisco startup PitPro Automation has started operating its first robotic tire-changing system in Calgary, Alberta, in partnership with Canadian tire service chain Kal Tire. The setup pairs two oven-sized robotic units carrying sensors and an arm that removes and stores lug nuts and swaps the wheels, and the company said it can change all four tires on a vehicle in under 15 minutes. Founder and CEO Jeremy Conrad said commercial fleets are the first target, alongside tire chains where shop workers often quit within months.

1 source