The dexterity race: inside the hands built with tactile sensors
Picking up an object, tightening a screw — motions humans never think about are taking engineers years to replicate.
FEATURE — HUMANOID
Humanoids hit the production line: the year "pilot project" became "shop-floor labor"
The era of walking-and-grasping demos grabbing headlines is fading. In warehouses and auto plants, humanoid robots are now being slotted into overnight shifts. Uptime data tells the real story of the shift to mass deployment.
Policy & Ethics
Who's liable when an autonomous robot causes an accident? Regulators are split
China
How Shenzhen's component supply chain is driving a global robot price war
Industrial Robotics
From welding to inspection: why small manufacturers still resist robots
Humanoids
View all8 hours on a single charge: inside the energy-efficiency race
Short battery life has been the biggest barrier to real-world use. We compare three very different approaches.
Why Japan's elder-care facilities didn't choose a walking robot
Wheeled practicality beat flashy bipedal walking. What facility visits revealed about real-world priorities.
Generative AI
View allInference costs fell 90% in a year. Small models are reshaping on-site AI
The era of one giant model ruling everything is ending. What factories and warehouses are finding in "small AI."
The data center building boom is straining some power grids
Surging AI demand is creating infrastructure strain in unexpected places. A report from the ground.
Who owns open-source AI? New gray areas in commercial use
License labels alone don't tell the story. Three gray zones developers are running into.
Industrial Robotics
View allThe night shift at a warehouse where picking robots clock in with people
A report from a Southeast Asian logistics hub on how "collaboration" is filling overnight staffing gaps.
Farm robots are reshaping the harvest in labor-short regions
A camera judges ripeness; the machine only picks. Growers talk through where the economics work.
Predictive-maintenance AI is cutting downtime in half at chip fabs
Minutes of downtime can mean millions in losses. A quiet revolution in predictive maintenance is underway.
By region
Japan JAPAN
- Care-robot rollouts and how municipal subsidies are actually spent
- Manufacturing's AI talent shortage exposes structural gaps outside cities
- Inside Japan's robotics special zones and their deregulation record
China CHINA
- How Shenzhen's component supply chain fuels the global price war
- Humanoid mass production as national strategy
- Inside local governments' race to attract robotics investment
North America NORTH AMERICA
- Autonomous trucks hit a wall of state-by-state regulation
- Warehouse-automation investment accelerates a startup shakeout
- AI talent visa issues are delaying development roadmaps
Europe EUROPE
- How the AI Act is shaping robotics companies' development speed
- Manufacturing automation investment battles rising energy costs
- Unions and robot adoption: a report from the negotiating table