LEM Surgical is performing commercial spinal surgeries in Las Vegas with a three-armed robot system.

It's already FDA-cleared. Already generating patient outcomes.

But what caught my attention isn't the tech—it's the timing 🧵

Mobileye just spent $900M to buy a humanoid startup.

But the interesting part isn't the price tag—it's the timeline.

They're committing to commercial deployments in 2026 and series production by 2028.

That's not R&D. That's a product roadmap 🧵

Boston Dynamics just gave Atlas a Google DeepMind brain.

But the real story from CES 2026: Hyundai just committed to manufacturing 30,000 units annually by 2028.

That's not a pilot. That's a production bet. 🧵

Qualcomm just entered the humanoid chip race.

But I think the story isn't the chip—it's the timing.

When smartphone giants pivot serious resources toward robotics, it signals something changed. Here's what I see 🧵

A robot just learned 1,000 tasks in 24 hours from one demo each.

But the real story isn't the speed—it's that this flips the economics of flexible automation.

Here's why that matters 🧵

Midea just showed a 6-armed wheeled robot and called it a "super humanoid."

It's not humanoid at all—and that's exactly the point.

China's 2026 strategy isn't about making robots look human. It's about winning on price and function 🧵

A surgeon in Shanghai just performed cancer surgery on patients in Mumbai—5,000km away.

This wasn't a demo. It was actual patient care with regulatory approval.

But I think the real story is what didn't happen 🧵

A robot that feels pain and pulls away reflexively—without waiting for its brain to process the signal.

City University of Hong Kong just published this, and I think it matters more than the headlines suggest.

Here's why 🧵

Boston Dynamics is targeting brownfield factories with electric Atlas.

Not new factories. Not labs. Existing plants that weren't designed for robots.

I think this is the smartest humanoid strategy I've seen. Here's why 🧵

Everyone's talking about humanoid robots entering factories.

But the bigger shift is factories being redesigned for robots—eliminating lights, climate control, and 30-40% of floor space built for humans.

I think we're underestimating how fast this happens 🧵

China issued 7,705 humanoid patents in five years.

The US? 1,561.

But the real story isn't the 5-to-1 ratio—it's what it does to your unit economics if you're building humanoids outside China.

🧵

CATL just deployed humanoid robots at scale on battery production lines.

99% success rate on high-voltage testing. Not a demo. Not a pilot.

This is the deployment everyone's been waiting for—but I think the tech choices matter more than the milestone 🧵

A Silicon Valley startup just announced plans to build 50,000 armed humanoid robots for the US military by 2027.

Foundation isn't hiding it—they want their robots to be "deadly, not docile."

This crosses a line the entire industry has avoided. Here's why it matters 🧵

Rodney Brooks is calling out the entire humanoid robotics funding wave.

His argument: hundreds of millions are being spent on vision-based training that ignores the fundamental dexterity problem.

I think he's right—and the data backs him up 🧵

Every disaster robot I've seen fails the same way: optimized for one terrain type.

Caltech's X1 just solved it by doing something I haven't seen work before—autonomous switching between walking, flying, and rolling. 🧵