What to keep an eye on in the race to build humanoid robots

MIT Technology Review's What’s Next series looks across industries, trends, and technologies to give you a first look at the future.

In June 2024 , Agility Robotics sent a fleet of its Digit humanoid robots to GXO Logistics , which moves products for companies ranging from Nike to Nestlé .

The race to build humanoid robots is motivated by the idea that the world is set up for the human form, and automating that form could mean a seismic shift for robotics.

The way we teach robots how to do things is changing rapidly.

Nvidia , the world’s most valuable company, has released a “world foundation model” Called Cosmos , the model has learned from 20 million hours of video.

It's sort of like learning from your experiences in the real world and from your own imagination.

Large language models’ ability to understand and generate text has already made them a sort of translator between robots.

Jan Liphardt from Stanford thinks the next frontier of this transformation will hinge on the ability to instruct robots through speech.

This is particularly of interest as the Department of Defense focuses increasingly on the possibility of a future conflict in the Pacific between China and Taiwan .