A catwalk at IFA, but for robots

PLUS: Figure's humanoid play gets a compute boost

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Jennifer Mossalgue, Rowan Cheung, Shubham Sharma & Zach Mink
September 07, 2026

Good morning, robotics enthusiasts. After the humanoid games in China, another robot spectacle is here, this time at IFA 2026 in Berlin.

Machines from 11 companies, mostly Chinese, took the stage for the "Robots on the Runway" live show, demonstrating everything from fancy dance moves to capabilities that can actually save lives in emergencies.

Also today: Figure gets a compute boost for its humanoids, and the novel Roomba Duo.

In today’s robotics rundown:

  • Robots on the runway at IFA 2026

  • Figure locks up 100K GPUs to train humanoids

  • iRobot’s new Roomba carries another Roomba

  • Driverless excavators digging U.S. infrastructure sites

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

IFA 2026

Image source: IFA 2026

The Rundown: IFA 2026 just hosted a live runway show for robots, using the same format typically seen in fashion shows but with machines (humanoids, wheeled, and four-legged ones) walking, posing, and performing tricks on stage.

The details:

  • 11 brands, mostly from China, demoed their robots, with the focus being agility, sensor advances, and interaction skills — not autonomy.

  • Each brand sent one flagship for a solo turn, with EngineAI’s heavy T800 showing full-body moves and Agibot’s X2 Ultra performing a leg split.

  • Dobot’s panda-like robot moved on all fours, a few companion robots showcased their interaction skills, and a four-legged unit acted out a fire-rescue drill.

  • Not all was perfect, though; one four-legged robot reversed offstage, and the X2 Ultra lost balance until the host steadied it by hand.

Why it matters: This was a fun showcase of hardware advances in robotics, but the real test is autonomy — whether these machines can operate reliably and safely in the mess of actual homes and factories. Figure and others are working on that, and even with new data and compute efforts underway (more below), there's a long way to go.

FIGURE

Image source: Figure

The Rundown: Figure just announced a deal with UK-based neocloud Nscale to deploy up to 100K Nvidia Vera Rubin GPUs and scale the training of its Helix humanoid AI brain — with the first chips going live in the second half of 2027 in Texas.

The details:

  • The deal covers an initial compute commitment of $3.5B and an intent to scale past $6B, with Nscale also taking an equity stake in Figure.

  • Nscale will become Figure’s preferred compute provider, with both sides also exploring ways to put humanoids to work inside the neocloud’s supply chain.

  • Figure said it’s facing compute and data gaps; this deal helps with compute, and for data, it has built an app that pays people to film themselves doing chores.

  • For Nscale, which is preparing an IPO, Figure is its first named humanoid customer, a shift from LLM efforts with Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Why it matters: Figure is going all in on scaling Helix, with data and compute both on the way. The goal is machines capable enough to work in factories and homes, but the first chips don't come online until mid-2027, so the outcome is still months away — and it all rests on physical intelligence scaling the way LLMs did, which remains to be seen.

ROOMBA

Image source: iRobot

The Rundown: iRobot unveiled Roomba Duo at IFA 2026, a prototype that pairs a steam-mopping main robot with a mechanical arm that lowers a slim companion unit into gaps it can't reach itself.

The details:

  • The main unit's top-mounted arm stays level as it moves, letting it carry and release the 3.3-inch-tall companion robot, which can slide under beds and sofas.

  • Both robots share one home map and coordinate in real time, splitting a single cleaning mission between open floor and tight corners.

  • The main unit steam-treats dried grime and scrubs with a 2.4-inch roller pressing down at 10 pounds of force, with hot-air drying behind it to protect wood floors.

  • The companion is the existing Roomba Plus 575 Combo, so the genuinely new hardware is the main unit and the arm; there’s no pricing or shipping date yet.

Why it matters: iRobot invented this category but lost it, selling itself out of bankruptcy to Shenzhen Picea Robotics, which already builds for Dyson and other brands. The Duo is a novel idea, signaling a comeback, but a prototype with no price or ship date is still a long way from a product that could take on rivals like Dreame, Roborock, and DJI.

AUTONOMOUS EXCAVATION

Image source: Bedrock Robotics

The Rundown: Weeks after San Francisco startup Bedrock Robotics put its first fully autonomous excavators to work in Texas and Nevada, the company says the operator-free machines are already near human-level productivity on live job sites.

The details:

  • The excavators are doing rough earthmoving on a Nevada water treatment plant with Sundt Construction and a 1.2M cubic-yard sitework job with Zachry.

  • Bedrock says a machine stops automatically if a person gets too close and remains halted until the area clears, with no human needed to restart it.

  • A spokesperson told Fox News the company measures output in cubic yards per shift and that a remote human steps in only rarely.

  • Bedrock sells the AI system as a same-day kit that bolts onto an existing machine, but everything running today is new equipment it outfitted itself.

Why it matters: Bedrock is aiming at a people gap. Excavators take five years to master, one in five construction workers is over 55, and earthwork blocks every phase that follows it. A machine that digs safely on its own would ease a bottleneck that holds up key projects, but whether its reliable is a question a handful of projects won’t settle.

QUICK HITS

Galbot opened pre-orders for its 1.25-meter ET1 humanoid, a 32-kg biped with up to 38 DoF and a 100M-parameter motion model aimed at entertainment and service roles.

Agility showed its Digit humanoid autonomously dragging a couch and rearranging chairs and clutter, demonstrating its generalized manipulation skills in human spaces.

DJI launched ROMO 2 robot vacuums with millimeter-level obstacle detection, LiDAR-guided mopping arms, and a Local Data Mode to keep home data off external servers.

XDOF, a Berkeley-based startup collecting real-world teleoperation data to train robots, is in talks to raise a Series B at a ~$1.2B valuation.

China’s Tuya Smart unveiled Doova, an AI companion robot for seniors that detects emergencies and alerts family via live video if there’s no response within 60 seconds.

Zinova Labs demonstrated Tool Intelligence, using LimX Dynamics’ TRON 2 humanoid to assemble formwork, lay rebar, and tie it together in a construction workflow.

The ARM Institute received ~$90M to deploy robotics, AI, and drones across 12 U.S. military manufacturing sites, with 15 organizations delivering projects within two years.

Medtronic invested $700M in Cornerstone Robotics and will distribute Cornerstone’s Sentire multi-port robotic-assisted surgery system alongside its own Hugo system in select markets.

Unitree demoed a fully autonomous humanoid combat system powered by its UnifoLM-X2-1.0 world model, enabling real-time planning, decision-making, and interaction.

That's it for today!

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Rowan, Zach, Shubham, Jennifer, and Nate — The Rundown’s editorial team