Physical AI leaves the lab for the factory floor

Physical AI is AI that perceives and acts in the real world through machines such as robots, rather than only producing text or images. Building it typically combines synthetic data, model training from human demonstrations and simulated practice, simulation testing, and deployment on edge computers, the pipeline AWS packaged in its October 2026 open source Physical AI Toolchain with NVIDIA's Isaac and Cosmos tools.

Yes, but in small numbers and narrow tasks. Figure 02 logged about 1,250 operating hours over roughly 10 months at BMW's Spartanburg plant, and Agility's Digit has moved more than 100,000 totes at GXO's Georgia warehouse. A Robotics 24/7 analysis cautions that announced orders and factory capacity targets far exceed verified productive deployments.

RaaS is a subscription model in which the vendor provides robots plus fleet management, maintenance, support and software updates, instead of selling the hardware outright. Humanoid's deployment agreement with Schaeffler and Agility's Digit contracts both use this approach, which lowers upfront cost and shifts uptime risk to the vendor.

China installed about 354,000 industrial robots in 2025, 59% of the global total, versus almost 38,500 in the US, according to IFR data. In humanoids, Omdia ranked three Chinese firms, AgiBot, Unitree and UBTech, as the top shippers of the roughly 13,000 units shipped worldwide in 2025.