🚨🤖 Robotics Weekly Digest (May 28, 2025)

From dunking robots to factory shifts and humanoid fire squads—here’s what’s new in the world of physical AI this week 👇

• SharpaWave’s dexterous hand (22 DOF, ≥1k tactile pixels / finger, 0.005 N pressure sensitivity) brings industrial-grade force and touch resolution into a human-size form factor, opening doors for fine manipulation in industrial settings. X (formerly Twitter)

SharpaWave, a 22-DOF dexterous hand, by Singapore-based startup Sharpa.

• NVIDIA released its DREAMGEN 4-step pipeline, turning a single still image + a handful of tele-op clips into a fully-labeled synthetic video set, and enabling humanoids to learn 22 brand-new skills (pouring, tool use, articulated-object handling) without extra human demos. Toolkit to go open-source “soon.” Nvidia

• Similarly, Tesla engineers can now port large chunks of skill policies learned from random human videos directly to the bot (1st-person for now), cutting the costly tele-op phase. Multi-task network is voice-/text-promptable; next stop is 3rd-person web video + self-play RL. X (formerly Twitter)

• Beyond Imagination (Ray Kurzweil, Harry Kloor) is negotiating a $100 M Series B at a $500 M valuation to accelerate its Beomni humanoid and a manufacturing OS for human-robot collaboration. Fast Company

• Apple has made its tabletop “J595” AI robot with expressive arm a top-priority device, aiming to leapfrog stalled smart-home hubs with personality-driven robotics. iClarified

• ABB is working with BofA and UBS to explore spinning off or selling its robotics division—valued at ≈ $3.5 B—as it pivots toward higher-margin electrification play. Pymnts

• Figure 01/02 clocked a 20-hour stretch on BMW’s X3 line; CEO Brett Adcock also revealed that Figure 03 is now “officially walking.” X (formerly Twitter)

Figure completed a 20-hour run of back-to-back shifts on the BMW X3 production line.

• A Gemini-powered robot, with zero task-specific training, used conceptual reasoning to slam-dunk on a toy hoop, hinting at large-model generalization in the physical world.

  YouTube

• In a post I/O interview, Sundar Pichai said the “next magical moment” in tech will be when today’s largely online AI “translates meaningfully into the physical world,” unlocking general-purpose robotics. YouTube

• Singapore’s Home Team picks humanoids for danger zones. HTX unveiled four prototypes built for firefighting, hazmat response, and search-and-rescue. The bots will start as tele-operated helpers by mid-2027 and, with onboard AI, are slated for largely autonomous operation by 2029. Singapore is backing the effort with a new S$100 M Home Team Humanoid Robotics Centre (H2RC), opening 2026. Interesting Engineering

That’s a wrap on this week’s roundup. As robots grow more capable and AI spills into the real world, we’re watching the future unfold in realtime. Like what you see? Subscribe for next week’s breakthroughs.