Top 10 robotics stories of December 2024

A series of humanoid robot announcements at the end of the month dominated our top 10 stories in December 2024. In addition, large funding rounds and forward-looking forecasts grabbed our readers’ attention. 

Here are the 10 most popular stories on The Robot Report in the past month. Subscribe to The Robot Report Newsletter and listen to The Robot Report Podcast to stay up to date on the robotics developments you need to know about.

10. Huawei invests $413M into robotics subsidiary

Huawei Technologies, a Shenzhen, China-based telecommunications provider, invested 3 billion yuan (about $413 million) into its subsidiary Dongguan Jimu Machinery. The South China Morning Post first reported this news. Huawei has not publicly disclosed the investment. Huawei established Jimu in June 2023, when it registered the company with 870 million yuan in financing (about $121 million), according to Huawei Central. Read more.

9. Interact Analysis downgrades mobile robot forecast by 18%

Interact Analysis reduced its forecast for the global mobile robot market by 18% in 2027 due to a series of macroeconomic factors it said are affecting demand. This challenging climate has resulted in manufacturers and retailers slowing their investment into automation, and the research firm no longer expects a rapid uptick in autonomous mobile robot (AMR) deployments before 2027. Read more.

8. AMP Robotics raises $91M to accelerate deployment of recycling systems

AMP Robotics raised $91 million in corporate equity in a Series D financing in December 2024. The Louisville, Colo.-based company plans to use its latest funding to accelerate deployment of its AMP ONE systems, which uses artificial intelligence and robotics to sort municipal solid waste, or MSW. Read more.

7. Microbot Medical submits LIBERTY surgical robot to FDA for approval

Microbot Medical has submitted a 510(k) premarket notification to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for LIBERTY, a single-use, fully disposable robotic system for endovascular procedures. The company said it expects the FDA to clear LIBERTY during the second quarter of 2025. Read more.

6. Realbotix earns Amazon development subsidy; partners with UOL

Realbotix Corp., a developer of realistic humanoid robots and companionship-based AI, in December 2024 announced multiple company updates. It has secured a $100,000 subsidy from Amazon Web Services; partnered with Compass UOL, a provider of digital transformation services; and revised features in its Aria offering. Read more.

5. Jetson Orin Nano Super developer kit available from NVIDIA

NVIDIA released the Jetson Orin Nano Super Developer Kit. The new software release increases generative artificial intelligence workload performance from 40 trillion operations per second, or TOPS, to 67 TOPS and memory bandwidth from 68 GB/s to 102 GB/s. The result is up to 1.7x generative AI model performance gains and only 25 watts of power consumption. Read more.

4. Pudu Robotics launches PUDU D9 humanoid robot

Pudu Technology Inc. unveiled its first full-sized bipedal humanoid robot, the PUDU D9. The Shenzhen, China-based company said it is aiming for “commercially viable embodied intelligence” with the PUDU D9, which will soon be available for pre-sale through its official website. Pudu Robotics has focused on research and development, manufacturing, and sales of service robots. Read more.

3. EngineAI releases PM01 humanoid robot for commercial, educational use

Scarcely a week has passed in 2024 without some company entering the race to commercialize humanoid robots. EngineAI Robotics unveiled the PM01, which it described as a “lightweight, highly dynamic, and fully open universal embodied intelligent robot.” The Shenzhen, China-based company previously announced its SE01 humanoid in October. It said at the time that the SE01 included a neural network and a “natural” gait. Read more.

2. Apptronik partners with Google DeepMind to advance humanoid robots with AI

A year full of humanoid robot news is ending with more developments. Apptronik has partnered with the Google DeepMind robotics team. The companies said the strategic partnership will combine AI with robotics hardware, enabling humanoids to be more helpful to people in dynamic environments. Read more.

1. Figure AI ships Figure 02 humanoid robots to a paying customer

Humanoid robots are starting to move from development and trials to commercial use. Figure AI in December 2024 announced that it has delivered its Figure 02 systems to a customer. “Exciting news — today, Figure officially became a revenue-generating company!” Brett Adcock, founder and CEO of Figure AI, posted to LinkedIn. “This week, we delivered F.02 humanoid robots to our commercial client, & they’re currently hard at work.” Read more.