Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. Robotics startup 1X just dropped a breakthrough AI model, giving its home humanoid, NEO, the smarts to tackle daily chores with striking autonomy.

NEO now breezes through tasks — from doing laundry to watering plants — with seamless, almost human-like precision. Will this beige knit-wearing bot leapfrog the competition and be among the first to move into our homes?

In today’s robotics rundown:

• NEO now thinks and moves more like humans

• Altman-backed delivery bot startup grabs $80M

• NVIDIA unveils new robotics tools at Paris GTC

• XRobotics nabs $2.5M for pizza-making bot

• Quick hits on other robotics news

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

1X

🤖 NEO now thinks and moves more like a human

Image source: 1X

The Rundown: Norwegian robotics startup 1X just unveiled its latest reinforcement learning controller designed to help its home humanoid, NEO, smoothly move, perceive, and interact in real-world home environments.

The details:

• At the heart of this leap is Redwood, 1X’s proprietary model, which merges language control, locomotion, and whole body manipulation into one system.

• Redwood is trained on data from real-world sessions with 1X’s EVE and NEO robots, covering both teleoperation and autonomous household activities.

• It learns from both successes and failures, enabling behaviors like grasping unseen objects, retrying after failures, and using both hands to do chores.

• The system also runs entirely on NEO’s onboard GPU, eliminating the need for constant cloud connectivity and ensuring privacy for home use.

Why it matters: Unlike traditional models that treat movement and object handling as separate skills, Redwood enables NEO to do it all with a fluidity nearly matching human motion. Early in-home trials are already putting this next-level agility to the test, with the company planning to produce 100K units by 2027 — and millions by 2028.

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COCO ROBOTICS

🔥 Altman-backed delivery bot startup grabs $80M

Image source: Coco Robotics

The Rundown: Los Angeles-based Coco Robotics, a startup building last-mile delivery robots and backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, just raised $80M in funding — bringing its total investment to over $120M and paving the way for major growth plans.

The details:

• The company operates a fleet of approximately 1,300 zero-emission, cooler-sized robots across major cities including L.A., Chicago, Miami, and Helsinki.

• Since its inception in 2020, Coco says it has completed more than 500K deliveries, partnering with platforms like Uber Eats and DoorDash.

• Coco has a strategic collaboration with OpenAI, leveraging AI models to enhance robot navigation, obstacle avoidance, and real-time decision-making.

• The company’s robots are designed for high-volume operations, with each capable of carrying up to 90L of goods and operating in urban environments.

Why it matters: Coco Robotics is battling heavyweights like Nuro, Serve Robotics, and Starship Technologies in the fast-moving last-mile delivery race. With Altman’s backing and a fresh $80M boost, the startup is now looking to charge ahead — targeting 10K robots on the streets by 2026 and eyeing bold new markets.

NVIDIA

🧠 NVIDIA unveils new robotics tools at Paris GTC

Image source: NVIDIA

The Rundown: At GTC Paris 2025, NVIDIA unveiled a suite of new tools and platforms to accelerate AI-driven robots across Europe and beyond, in addition to the announcement of a massive facility in Germany set to house 10K GPUs.

The details:

• A standout is the launch of Isaac GR00T N1.5, an open foundation model for humanoid robot reasoning, for download on Hugging Face.

• Isaac Sim 5.0 and Isaac Lab 2.2, robotics simulation and learning frameworks optimized for NVIDIA RTX PRO 6000 systems, are now available on GitHub.

• The company also expanded its Halos safety system to robotics, offering safety extension for the IGX platform and an AI agent for monitoring robot ops.

• The facility with 10K GPUs (including DGX B200 and RTX PRO servers) will enable manufacturers to optimize factory layouts and robotic fleets.

Why it matters: This week, NVIDIA announced a wave of new partnerships with European countries and companies, covering everything from infrastructure to software, as it works to cement its role at the heart of global AI. In robotics, European heavyweights like Agile Robots have already started tapping NVIDIA’s technologies.

XROBOTICS

🍕 XRobotics nabs $2.5M for pizza-making bot

Image source: XRobotics

The Rundown: San Francisco’s XRobotics raised $2.5M in seed funding for xPizza Cube, a compact, countertop robot that can assemble perfect, precision pizzas at a rate of up to 100 per hour, slashing labor demands by up to 80%.

The details:

• The company says that advanced machine learning ensures perfect sauce swirls, even cheese distribution, and precise pepperoni placement every time.

• It easily adjusts for different pizza sizes and styles — from classic round pies to Detroit and Chicago deep dish, allowing restaurants to expand their offerings.

• The xPizza Cube is available for a monthly lease of $1,300 over three years, making it accessible for both small pizzerias and larger chains.

• XRobotics’ robots are reportedly producing an impressive 25K pizzas per month across an undisclosed number of locations.

Why it matters: Compared to pizza robotics startup Zume, which closed shop in 2023 after raising $420M, XRobotics says it aims to help pizza makers save time and tedious labor rather than replace staff entirely. With this fresh round of funding, XRobotics is planning to bring its pizza-making tech beyond the U.S. to Canada and Mexico.

QUICK HITS

📰 Everything else in robotics today

Bank of America Securities analysts predict that robotics for deliveries by retailers like Amazon could replace workers, driving $7.1B in annual savings by 2032. 

Walmart is expanding its U.S. drone-delivery program to five new cities—Atlanta, Charlotte, Houston, Orlando, and Tampa—extending the service to about 100 stores.

AI startup Physical Intelligence unveiled Real-Time Chunking (RTC), a technique that allows robots to plan upcoming actions while carrying out current ones.

MIT researchers developed a machine learning-based adaptive control algorithm that helps drones stick to their intended paths, even when hit by unpredictable winds.

The UK’s NHS announced that robot-assisted surgery will become “the default” for 90% of many operations by 2035, slashing wait times by 2029.

Australian roboticists published new findings that showed mixed reactions to humans interacting with LLM-enabled humanoids.

Researchers unveiled a biometric robotic hand, the F-TAC Hand, featuring high-res tactile sensors covering 70% of its surface, enabling human-like adaptive grasping.

Shenzhen-based AI2 Robotics joined forces with Chinese automaker Dongfeng Liuzhou to deploy A12’s humanoids in factories to handle inspections and assembly.

A team of 432 “walking” robots relocated a 7,500-ton historic Shikumen building in Shanghai back to its original site, gently moving the structure 10 meters a day.

New York University and UC Berkeley launched EgoZero, a novel system designed to capture human demos with Project Aria smart glasses for robot training.

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Rowan, Jennifer, and Joey—The Rundown’s editorial team