Qingtian Zu, JD.com Form Strategic Partnership
Qingtian Zu and JD.com have entered a strategic partnership to accelerate the Robot as a Service (RaaS) market. The collaboration will see Qingtian Zu open a flagship store on JD.com, standardizing robot‑leasing through a platform‑based model. Joint product development will target education, guidance and cleaning applications, while JD.com’s logistics network will streamline supply‑chain and after‑sales support. The move leverages Qingtian Zu’s 4,000‑plus robot fleet and JD.com’s nationwide online and offline presence to broaden consumer adoption.
Bliq.ai Wins Approval for Fully Driverless Road Operations in Estonia
Bliq.ai has secured the first EU approval to operate fully driverless cars on public roads in Estonia, allowing remote‑supervised trips without a driver in the vehicle. The company already runs about a dozen autonomous vehicles, which it claims form Europe’s...
Why Lucid (LCID) Is Becoming a Robotaxi Moonshot
Lucid announced that Uber will raise its total investment to $500 million and commit to purchasing at least 35,000 vehicles for a future global robotaxi service, covering the Gravity SUV and upcoming midsize models. The same update included a $550 million infusion...
Waymo Takes Multi-City Pause on Floods, Suspends Freeway Access
Waymo announced a temporary suspension of its robotaxi service in four U.S. cities after an unoccupied vehicle became stranded on a flooded road in Atlanta. The pause now covers Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and an additional city, reflecting heightened caution amid...
L3Harris Delivers T4 and T7 ‘Life-Saving’ Robotic Systems to ADF
L3Harris Technologies has delivered its T4 and T7 multi‑mission robotic systems to the Australian Defence Force under the DEF08101 programme. The T4 platform focuses on explosive ordnance disposal and CBRNE detection, while the larger T7 adds ISR sensors, hazardous‑material cleanup,...
Open-Source Software Is Starting to Help Robots Think
Open‑source initiatives are moving beyond hardware to give robots the ability to reason, decide, and act. Companies such as Nvidia, Hugging Face and Alibaba have released open‑source models, simulation tools, and datasets that enable end‑to‑end robot AI development. The effort...
SPARC AI and Rate Manufacturing Partner to Deliver Software-Defined, GPS-Denied Drone Targeting
SPARC AI Inc. announced a strategic partnership with U.S. defense contractor Rate Manufacturing to embed its Overwatch navigation platform into Rate’s Model‑F multi‑mission drones. The software‑only solution mitigates inertial drift and enables precise targeting in GPS‑denied, jammed environments without adding...
SOF Week 2026: US Army to Conduct Trials with Mountain Horse’s Containerised Drone Launcher
Mountain Horse Solutions showcased its Containerised Autonomous Drone Delivery System (CADDS) at SOF Week 2026, demonstrating a self‑powered, solar‑charged unit that can store, charge, launch and recover drones from any vehicle or platform. The system operates semi‑ or fully autonomously,...
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Gecko Robotics announced it will integrate Ouster’s new Rev8 digital lidar into its Cantilever operating platform. The Rev8 sensor suite delivers full‑color, structured 3D point clouds together with infrared and intensity data, enabling richer visualizations of industrial assets. By feeding...
Drone Delivery Company Flytrex Expands with New Texas Factory
Flytrex is opening an 8,000‑square‑foot drone manufacturing and maintenance hub near Dallas, Texas, to support its aggressive rollout across the Dallas‑Fort Worth metro area. The plant will employ roughly 50 staff and target production of about 1,000 drones per year,...
INTERVIEW: Matt Fisch, Chairman and CEO, AEye
AEye CEO Matt Fisch describes the company’s mission to give machines sight through advanced lidar, positioning it as a cornerstone of the emerging "physical AI" era. The firm’s ultra‑vision platform offers long‑range, high‑resolution perception that outperforms traditional cameras and radar,...
Huawei Rotating Chairman Xu Zhijun Visits Dongfeng Motor
Huawei’s rotating chairman Xu Zhijun visited Dongfeng Motor Group on May 19, reaffirming the companies’ strategic alliance and unveiling a “Strategic Cooperation 2.0” framework. The meeting highlighted joint AI‑driven R&D, the award of a Gold Product Team for co‑creation using Huawei’s Qiankun full‑stack...
I Gave My OpenClaw Agent a Physical Body
OpenClaw, a reinforcement‑learning agent originally trained in simulation, was equipped with a physical robot arm in a recent Wired experiment. The embodied AI quickly learned to wave, locate a red ball, and grasp objects, demonstrating real‑world motor control. The test...
Geekplus Takes Fifth RBR50 Innovation Award With AI-Powered Picking Station
Geekplus, the Beijing‑based warehouse robotics firm, earned its fifth RBR50 Innovation Award for its Robot Arm Picking Station, which uses a zero‑shot learning model to automate item picking. The system was validated at Schneider Electric’s Shanghai warehouse, where it doubled...
Barclays Research Expects Humanoid Robots to Fundamentally Reshape the Real Economy
Barclays Research’s 71st Equity Gilt Study predicts humanoid robots will become a $200 bn market by 2035, extending AI from software to physical tasks. China dominates the sector, responsible for 85% of deployments in 2025 and poised to use robots to...