NASA’s Perseverance rover has completed the first AI-planned drive on another planet, with Anthropic’s Claude model generating the route for two drives in December 2025. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory used Claude to create waypoints and verify commands before sending them to Mars.
Ondas Holdings Inc.'s subsidiary American Robotics has received approval for its Optimus drone to be listed on the Defense Contract Management Agency's Blue UAS Cleared List, enabling rapid federal procurement for defense and infrastructure use.
Grid Aero has raised $20 million in Series A funding co-led by Bison Ventures and Geodesic Capital to advance its long-range autonomous aircraft for defense and humanitarian missions.
Robbyant, an embodied AI company under Ant Group, has released LingBot-VLA as an open-source vision-language-action model designed to function as a universal brain for robots. The model demonstrated strong cross-morphology performance on real-world and simulation benchmarks.
Pony.ai has announced a partnership with Beijing ATBB Travel & Express Service to jointly deploy robotaxi services across China's major cities, expanding into airport and business travel routes.
WeRide has launched GENESIS, a simulation platform that combines physical and generative AI to accelerate autonomous vehicle development and testing across global environments.
Richtech Robotics has partnered with Microsoft through the Microsoft AI Co-Innovation Labs to enhance the ADAM robot with agentic AI powered by Azure AI. The collaboration aims to improve contextual awareness and operational efficiency across various industries.
XPRIZE has announced five finalist teams in the Autonomous Wildfire Response Track of its $11 million Wildfire competition, awarding $750,000 among them to advance AI-driven firefighting technologies. The finalists include Anduril, Data Blanket, Dryad, FireSwarm Solutions, and Wildfire Quest.
Nexdata has completed construction and begun full operation of its Embodied AI Data Factory in Singapore, designed to produce large-scale real-world interaction data for training embodied AI models.
AgiBot unveiled Genie Sim 3.0 at CES 2026, an open-source simulation platform for embodied AI built on NVIDIA Isaac Sim and Omniverse, offering over 10,000 hours of synthetic data and standardized benchmarking tools.
aiMotive showcased its aiDrive automated driving software and aiSim 6 simulation platform at CES 2026, highlighting scalable ADAS solutions and neural simulation technology for virtual vehicle testing.
Microsoft has unveiled Rho-alpha, its first robotics model derived from the Phi series of vision-language models. The system translates natural language commands into control signals for robots performing complex bimanual manipulation tasks.
Baidu's Apollo Go and K2's AutoGo have begun offering fully autonomous ride-hailing services on Yas Island via the AutoGo app, following their acquisition of a driverless commercial permit in November 2025. The companies plan phased expansion to Reem, Al Maryah, and Saadiyat Islands throughout 2026.
NVIDIA introduced Alpamayo, a new family of open-source AI models, simulation tools, and datasets designed to help autonomous vehicles reason through complex real-world driving scenarios. The announcement was made at CES 2026.
Seeing Machines has established a Future Mobility Group to integrate its driver and occupant monitoring systems with autonomous vehicle platforms as commercial deployments expand globally.
NVIDIA, along with researchers from Stanford and Caltech, has introduced NitroGen, an open-source AI model capable of playing more than 1,000 video games. Trained on 40,000 hours of gameplay, the model shows potential for use in robotics and simulation.
Yann LeCun, outgoing Chief AI Scientist at Meta, is reportedly seeking to raise €500 million for a new AI venture valued at about €3 billion ahead of its launch, with Alexandre LeBrun set to serve as CEO.
Scientific Systems has completed a maritime trial using its OPTIMUS autonomy software to coordinate nine unmanned surface vessels in autonomous missions, demonstrating decentralized AI control for naval operations.
Shanghai-based robotics company Agibot has rolled out its 5,000th mass-produced humanoid robot, marking a major milestone in its embodied intelligence production lines.
Atomathic has announced the commercial availability of its AIDAR and AISIR platforms, which enhance sensor perception and decision-making across industries such as automotive, aviation, and defense.
Weekly coverage of AI-driven robotics advances in industrial automation, autonomous vehicles, and robotic systems.
